1857. 



NEW ENGLAND EAEMER. 



651 



your mortar into this grout, and mix it well with 

 your gravel. It will be necessary to have a frame 

 of one plank on each side to hold the grout and 

 gravel, until it is set; then make a slope wall on 

 each side, or any other plan to form strength to 

 hold the weight of the water. 



Houses have been built on this plan which noth- 

 ing can surpass for cheapness, durability, and beau- 

 ty. For plastering dairies and forming water cours- 

 es for milk pans, it is admirably adapted. 



Directions for Usf. — As a mortar, two parts 

 of coarse, clean, sharp sand, to one part of cement 

 — mix together diy, and temper with water; mix 

 in small quantities, as it hardens quickly. If loamy 

 sand is used, a greater portion of cement is required. 

 River or cij|fEk- washed sand is the best. When 

 used for plaste'-ing cisterns, by plastering on the 

 ground, three coats of one-half inch thickness 

 should be put on, one coat each day, until complet- 

 ed — scoring the first two and using more cement 

 in the last cout, which should be well smoothed. 

 Daily sprinkling with water for ten or twelve days 

 will strengthen the plastering of cisterns ; and this 

 should be done before the cistern is filled with wa- 

 ter. Care should be taken to procure fresh cement ; 

 that which is old, is nearly worthless." — Tennessee. 

 Farmer and Mechanic. 



For the New England Farmer. 



LSSTEUCTIVE mSECTS. 



Messes. Editors :— From the time of Moses, 

 (and I have no authority for stating how much be- 

 fore.) the plagues of animals and annoying and de- 

 structive insects have had their periods of devasta- 

 tions and afflictions, from Cape Horn to Nova Zem- 

 bla; no nation being exempt from their unwelcome 

 intrusions. People in all latitudes are necessitated 

 to exercise vigilance, and use precautionary meas- 

 ures of defence, or be deprived of sleep by torment- 

 ing nightly visitants, which usurp and occupy every 

 crack and cranny they can thrust themselves into 

 about our buildings and beds. The skipping, dread- 

 ed flea, the ill-favored, skulking and cowardly bed- 

 bug, the dismal toned mosqueto all lie in ambush 

 ready to make an attack upon the weary traveller, or 

 tired laborer, on their retiring, to be disappointed of 

 an expected night's rest. Wereadof the devouring 

 locust, and recently, of grasshoppers that lay waste 

 territories of grain and other vegetation, and we read 

 of flies and otlier vexatious insects, that have the ill 

 manners to surround the table of ladies and gentle- 

 men, and in their hunger, thrust themselves into 

 their faces, eyes, mouths and coffee-cups without any 

 apology. 



Among all the plagues of Egypt, I have no recol- 

 lection of worms being included in the variety of 

 pestilences that afflicted the pro-slavery monarch, 

 but undoubtedly, worms "committed depredations" 

 then, as well as now, as there is no new thing un 

 der the sun. The great variety of worms which 

 annually infest our fruit and fruit trees, and other 

 growing crops, may well compare with the plagues 

 of Egypt in their insatiable depredations — the can- 

 ker worm, the borer, the curculio, the cut worm 

 and endless varieties of these voracious insects sent 

 upon us for our sins, or to do some good we are 

 unconscious of, and for which we can hardly feel 

 grateful. Among this great variety of worms, the 

 devourers by wholesale and the princes of scourges, 



I are curculios and canker worms, which seem to de- 

 J fy all means to resist their propagation, or effect 

 I their destruction ; their ravages are directed to our 

 fruit trees ftnd fruit, more particularly to the ap- 

 ples this year, of which they have nearly made a 

 triumphant harvest. I have lately seen some re- 

 marks in the JVew England Farmer, made by Mr. 

 Fletcher, of Winchester, which struck me very for- 

 cibly, on the mischievous curculio ; his apprehen- 

 sions were, if I have not forgottpn,that they might 

 exterminate the apples in a few years if they multi- 

 ply in a ratio corresponding with a few of the last 

 years. There is a natural law opfirating among rep- 

 tiles and insects, and all animnls which multiply to 

 excess, which causes nearly their extermination pe- 

 riodically ; whether they eat themselves out of 

 "house and hom.e," or whether the plague or chol- 

 era prevails among them, and sweeps them oft'; the 

 canker worms and rose bugs, from a few in num- 

 bers, multiply so rapidly that their period of in- 

 crease lasts but about three or four years, before 

 they become so numerous that the apple trees and 

 many othf r plants are denuded by their voracity, 

 and then from starvation or disease, they decrease 

 and almost disappear. 



Between the years of 1813 and 1817, the canker 

 worms commenced their depredations on a fine or- 

 chard of mine in the town of Lawrence ; I applied 

 tar, but with no good effect; the third year they 

 completely consumed all the leaves on my apple 

 trees by the time they (the worm^) were half grown, 

 and from the trees they descended to the ground 

 to find something congenial to their voracity, but 

 jumping from the frying-pan into the fire, they all 

 perished. I saw no more canker worms on my or- 

 chard afterward ; thus we see that their numbers 

 and voracity wrought their own destruction, and I 

 believe it the best way to get rid of them. The cur- 

 culio I am in hopes will share the same fate 

 from the same cause. If the law of rapid increase 

 does not operate to the extermination of the curcu- 

 lio tribe, my apprehensions will correspond with 

 Mr. Fletcher's, but I have known the canker worms 

 and rose bugs to have their waxing [)eriods, and 

 waning periods almost to extermination, a large 

 number of times within my remembrance, and hope 

 the same law of rapid multiplication will operate to 

 the extermination of the curculio. S, Brown. 



JVorth fVilmington, August, 1857. 



STOSfE DRAINS-CONSTEUCTION, &c. 



Eds. Rural : — In the Rural of the 20th or 

 June, I sav/ some inquiries by M. Waterman, re- 

 specting the construction of stone drains, and being 

 both willing and anxious to receive and im.part 

 knowledge obtained by experience, I beg leave to 

 contribute any information calculated to advance 

 the science of agriculture, and will therefore give 

 my little experience in the way of stone drains. 

 The best mode of construction that I have built 

 upon is to sink to sufficient depth — generally about 

 three feet deep, three feet wide at top and one foot 

 at bottom — taking care to keep the fall at bottom 

 as uniform as possible, which can be regulated by a 

 spirit level. Select from the stones to be used 

 those apple-seed shaped, or with one pointed or 

 small end, of a size say from six to twelve pounds 

 weight, setting all over the bottom of the drain, 

 small ends downwards, taking care to place them 



