' THE LEA.VBS OF THE TREE Were FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS." 31 



likeness, yet with distinct attributes, as we read in the prophets of 

 the Old Testament, from whom Bochart tells us it is possible to 

 enumerate as many as ten kinds. Even one flight comprises myriads up- 

 on myriads, passing imagination, to which the drops of rain, or the sands 

 of the sea are the only fit companions; and hence it is almost a proverbial 

 mode of expression in the East (as may be illustrated by the Holy 

 Scriptures), by way of describing a vast invading army, to liken it to the 

 locusts. So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it is no exaggeration 

 to say that they hide the aun, from which circumstances, indeed, their 

 name in Arabic is derived. And so ubiquitous are they when they have 

 alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its surface. 



" This last characteristic is stated in the sacred account of the plagues 

 of Egypt, where their faculty of devastation is also mentioned. The cor- 

 rupting fly and the bruising and prostrating hail preceded them in the 

 series of visitations, but they came to do the work of ruin thoroughly. 

 For not only the crops and fruits, but the small twigs and the bark of the 

 trees are the victims of their curious and energetic rapacity. Nor do they 

 execute their task in a slovenly way, that, as they have succeeded other 

 plagues, so they may have successors themselves (such as the canker worm, 

 commonly known as the " measuring worm" now so destructive in 

 California.) 



"They take pains to spoil what they leave. Like the harpies, they smear 

 everything that they touch with a miserable slime, which has the effect of 

 a virus in corroding, or as some say, in scorching and burning. And then> 

 perhaps, as if all this were too little, when they can do nothing else, they 

 die, as if out of sheer malevolence to mankind, for the poisonous elements 

 of their nature are then let loose and dispersed abroad, and create a pesti- 

 lence; by which they manage to destroy many more by their death than in 

 their life. (After locust blizzards in Australia great ridges of the dead are 

 generally deposited on the sea shores of South Australia, of inland lakes, 

 and of Hobson's Bay in Victoria, creating a fearful stench). 



"Such are the locusts whose existence the ancient "heretics" brought 

 forward as their primary proof that there was an evil creator, and of whom 

 an Arabian writer shows his national horror, when he says that they have 

 the head of a horse, the eyes of an elephant, the heck of a bull, the horns 

 of a stag, the breast of a lion, the belly of a scorpion, the wings of an 

 eagle, the legs of a camel, the feet of an oatrich and the tail of a serpent." 

 (See "The More Destructive Locusts of America, north of Mexico," by 

 Lawrence Bruner. Issued by Professor Biley, 1893). 



THE VINE AND PHYLLOXERA IN CALIFORNIA. 



That all the American, Australian and other vines are but prolongations 

 of the original Adamic stalk, and therefore subject to kindred ailments from 

 similar environments and general conditions, is well shown by Professor 

 George Husmann of Chiles Valley, Napa County, California, in his earliest 

 work on " Grape Culture and Wine Making in California," published in 

 November of 1883, from which I now quote : 



"It is well known, he wrote, that the earliest beginnings (in California) 

 were made by the Jesuit Fathers of San Gabriel, with what has since become known 

 as the Mission or as it is erroneously called by many, the California grape. It ia 

 no doubt a true vinefera, whether, as some believe, it was grown from the seed or 

 from cuttings imported from Spun, it certainly bears no resemblance to our native 

 wild vine vitis Californica. A few enterprising men saw in its success there the 

 probabilities of a valuable industry. Their experiments were rewarded with 

 abundant crops which even surpassed their expectations, as our " (then)" dry and 



