554 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



sav the la^t thirty years, has seen more accom- 

 plished than all previous time. 



^ * * * * m * 



The farmer deals with the plant, with the 

 soil, with manures. Thetie stand in close re- 

 lations to each other, and to the atmo-phere 

 wliich constantly surrounds and acts upon them. 

 How the plant grows, — the conditions under 

 which it iiourishes or suffers detriment. — the 

 materials of which it is made, — the mode of 

 its construction and organization. — how it 

 feeds upon the soil and air, — how it serves as 

 food to animals, — how the air, soil, plant, and 

 animal, stand related to each other in a per- 

 petual round of the most beautif'nl and won- 

 derful transformations, — ihese are some of the 

 grand (piestions that come before us ; and tLey 

 are not less interesting to the philosopher or 

 man of culture, than important to the farmer 

 who depends upon their practical solution for 

 his comfort; or to the statesman, who regards 

 them in their bearings upon the weightiest of 

 political considerations. 



HOGS vs. BUGS. 



For some time hack the best and most scien- 

 tific fruit growers in the West have been 

 agreed, that practicallv there are but two 

 methods universally availal)le for fighting the 

 curculio ; namely, either 1st, by jarring the plum 

 trees continually, or 2d, bv allowing hogs 

 the r m of the orchard all through the summer 

 months. The first method produces an imme 

 diate effect, because the "Little Turk" is thus 

 arrested at once in his mischievous career, and 

 prevented from stinging any more fruit. The 

 second method is prospective in its effects, 

 and operates chiefly through the hogs picking 

 up all the wormy fruit as fast as it falls, and 

 thus preventing tlie larva of the curculio from 

 going underground, and generating a new 

 brood of curculio to stiug the fruit at a subse- 

 quent period. 



We propose in the following paragraphs, 

 without at all undervaluing the first method, 

 to demonstrate by plain, hard, piactical facts, 

 that the second of these two methods produces 

 most gratif\ing results when systematically 

 carried out for a series of years, even without 

 any regular jarring of the trees. The only 

 exception to be made is in the case of the 

 cherry, which unlike all other srone fruit, does 

 not fiill prematurely to the ground when bored 

 up by the larva of^ the curculio. Hence, so 

 far as regards the cherry, we must depend en- 

 tirelv upon the jarring process to subdue this 

 insect. 



But the plum curculio and its allies are not 

 the only insects that we can successfully at- 

 tack through the instrumentality of the hog ; 

 neither is stone fruit the only crop that can be 

 protected in this manner. For the last fifteen 

 years or so, pip fruit, namely, apples, pears, 

 and quinces, have been annually more or less 

 deteriorated by the apple worm or larva of the 



codling moth boring into their cores, and fill- 

 ing their llesh with its loathsome excrement. 

 Unlike all the snout beetles that infest stone 

 fiuit in America, this is an imported insect, 

 which was originally, about the beginning of 

 the present century, introduced from Europe 

 into the Eastern States, whence it has gradu- 

 ail\ spread westward into the Valley of the Mis- 

 sissippi. The facts which we shall presently 

 quote prove that hogs are death upon this in- 

 sect, as well as upon the plum curculio, pick- 

 ing up the wormy apples as fast as they tall, 

 and greedily devouring them without any 

 squeamish misgivings as to the wholesomemss 

 ot their living inhabitants. It is not at all im- 

 probable, either, that hogs may pick up and 

 devour the larva of the codling moth after it 

 has left the fallen fruit, and while il is on its 

 travel- for the trunk of the api)le tree. For 

 instead of going underground, like the larva 

 of tlie plum curculio, this larva spins a cocoon 

 above ground, and usually in the, chinks of the 

 balk of the tree upon which the apple that 

 nourished it grew. Hence, as the apple worm 

 is of some considerable size, some specimens 

 being almost an inch long, a hungry hog would 

 scarcely consider it "too small business" to 

 pick up and devour as many as could be found 

 travelling along the surface of the earth. 



David E. Brown, one of the largest fruit 

 growers near Alton, South Illinois, has for 

 about five years kept both hogs, and, at times, 

 sheep, in his apple and peach orchards. His 

 fruit is not infested by insects nearly as much 

 as that of his neighbors, although he employs 

 no other precaution whatever to guard against 

 I he depredations of fruit-boring msects. His 

 peach trees are also free from borers, though 

 he takes no pains to worm his trees. His hogs 

 keep in good condition on the fallen fruit. 

 These facts were confirmed both by Dr. E. S. 

 Hull and by Mr. B. L. King.sbury, of AUon. 



Mr. Caughlin, in the Report of the Alton 

 Horticultural Society for Jidy 2, 1868, "gave 

 favorable experience in regard to hogs eating 

 fallen peaches. His peaches were very free 

 from worms this year. He attributes this to 

 the fact, that the hogs in his orchard destroyed 

 so many of the larvse last year." 



We know a cultivator who had heavy crops 

 of plums for seventeen years in succession — 

 his swine for these seventeen years, without a 

 season's interruption, b* ing allowed the run of 

 the yard. — Country Gentleman, 1868. 



Jotham Bradbur)*, residing near Quincy, 

 III., has an ohl apple orchard, which many 

 years ago used invariably to produce nothing 

 but wormy and gnarly fi uit. A few years ago 

 he ploughed up this orchard and seeded it to 

 clover, by way of hog pasture. As soon as 

 the clover had got a sufficient start, he 

 turned in a gang of hogs, and has allowed 

 them the range of his orchard ever since. 

 Two years after the land was ploughed, the 

 apple trees produced a good crop of fair, 



