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THE GENESEE FARMER 



Jan. 1, 183 1. 



rie*, arid quinces may lie grafted wilh much 

 certainty. Peaches, apricots, and nectarines 

 are more difficult but will succeed if carefully 

 done; also most kinds of forest trees: but there 

 are very few trees or shrubs of any kind 

 that may not he budded. 



Currants, gooseberries, and grapes are gen- 

 erally cultivated by cuttings winch may be ta- 

 ken from September until June. In procuring 

 cions, persons should be very careful in ascer 

 taining the names and qualities of the fruit and 

 equally careful in labelling and recording the 

 same. that they may cultivate from them or dis- 

 tribute them to their friends in turn without 

 the possibility of mistake. 



THE WEATHER, 

 The past season has been marked at this 

 place with many striking peculiarities. The 

 spring opened with a very pleasant, growing, 

 and forward April — a backward, rainy; and cold 

 May, the frosts of which month only departed 

 on its last day, that on the 31st being the most 

 severe. The ripening of fruits, and the whole 

 summer crop, was retarded about 10 days later 

 than usual. The full has also been an uncom- 

 mon one ; and in the immediate vicinity of the 

 lake and ilie Genesee river, there was not frost 

 onough to lull moderately tender vegetable- tilljj rity 



the Glh of December — the chrysanthemum o 

 artemisia, blossomed in the ope > air, faded and 

 perfected its seed. Mr. Silas Cornell, nursery 

 man, in this neighborhood, showed us three 

 full blown monthly ruses, plucked in his garden 

 on the 12th of December. In shirt, the mild- 



NATIIBAL HISTORY. 



There appeared in tho 9th number of the 

 Family Library Borne facts on this subjoct, 

 which prove it a much more interesting matter 

 than people have generally supposed The in 

 sect creation by nioBt persons, but particularly 

 by the superficial observers of nature, has been 

 passed over as an item too small to be deserving 

 of noticee, among the numereus works o" the 

 Great Architect of all things. But the phi 

 losopher whose delight is the continued in> 

 crease of knowledge, and approximation to 

 wards the great fountain of wisdom, find? in 

 this part of the economy of nature, as clear, 

 certain, anddemonstrative proof.not only of the 

 existence of a Great First Cause, but also of 

 his wisdom, power, benevolence and good, as 

 ho does in the examination of nature in a high- 

 er range, or of the formation of men — so " fear- 

 fully and wonderfully made " Man has a 

 deeper interest in this minute part of creation 

 than he generally supposos : much of his weal 

 or woe is in some way or manner, dependent 

 upon the operations of the insect world. 



'• An accurate knowledge of the properties 

 of insects is of grpat importance to man, mere- 

 ly with relation to his own comfort-and secu- 

 The injuries which they indict upon us 



are extensive and complicated ; and the rem- 

 j ed'es which we attempt, by the destruction of 

 those creatures, both insects, birds and quad- 

 rupeds, who keep then ravages m check, are 

 generally aggravations of the evil, because 

 they are directed by an ignorance of tho econ- 

 omy of nature. The little knowledge which 

 ness of the fall is unprecedented even in tlii-ll we have of the modes by which insects may 

 region. This day the thermometer stands sit 'i be impeded in their destruction of much thai 



tin 



the 

 eful 



luable to us. lias probably proceeded from 



jur contempt of their individual insignificance. 



The security of properly has ceased to be 



42, with a very dense fog — rain full diirm 



last ii'glitto the Jdepth if 1.3-10 imhes- 



river and canal clear of ice; with a boj 



prospect ofa plentiful supply of that great sta- endangered by quadrupeds of prey, and yet 



, ... ' j »<■ ,u- i i our gardens are ravaged by apuides aud cat- 



pie of this country — mvrl. Alter this week we! b , . , ~ 



r , ., , , ■ i • i. ii leipillars. It is somewhat startling to aUirm 



shall rciruarv give a meteorological table, to- , . .. ,-.- c »i i 



= ' 6 ° ' ii that the condition of the human race is sen 



gotherwith regular notices of all the apparent ouslj in j, lred by these petty annoyances ; but 

 phenomenaof the atmospheric influences; and | lt j s p re f ec tly true that the art and industry ol 

 at the opening of the spring, a register of the 

 flr.t appearance of vegetation and blossoms of 

 all the plants within our observation. 



A 0.1IEST1ON. 



nan have not yet been able to overcome the 



collective force, the individual persevereance, 



and the complicated machinery of destruction 



which insect- employ. A small ant, accord- 



ding to a most careful and philosophical ohser 

 ii- ' ™ . ' j 



A gentleman bought from a nursery man four 

 trees and desired his gardener to plant them) urHgre8S f civilization. in many pari 



out in such a form that they should be cquidis 

 lant, each and every individual relatively with j 

 he other, or in such manner that a rope fasten. 

 ed to any one would reach the other three. — j 

 Now in what form would they set to comply 

 with his order. X. 



of 111 



A KOOD BUSINBSS. 



We learn that between the I tth of August 

 and the 14th of December, 1830, Me srs. E. S. 

 Beech, (V Co. have floured at their mill in this 

 village 164,000 bushels of wheat, making be 

 '.ween 37 and 33,000 barrels of flour. Large 

 as is this amount, it is only a small item in the 

 general average of ihe flouring business done 

 ;n this place during that time. 



Canal Tolls — 'I ho collector's office in this 

 village closed yesterday, having received dur- 

 ing the Beason tolls to the amount of $150,188 

 S3. Last year the amount of tolls was $!>8, 

 518,17, making an increase this year of S."> t . 

 [110,06. The amount of flour entered at this 

 >f!ico during the season is $337,484 Barrels. 



equinoctial /.one. These animals devour paper 

 and parchment ; they destroy every hook and 

 manuscript. Many provinces of Spanish 

 America cannot in consequence, show a writ- 

 ten document of one hundred years' exis- 

 tence. ' What development,' he adds, 'can 

 the civilization of a people assume, if there 

 be nothing to connect the present with (he 

 past — if the depositories of human knowledge 

 must constantly be renewed — if (lie 'noun 

 ments of genius and «vislo:n cannot he trans 

 mitted to posterity ?' Again, there are bee 

 lies which deposit their larvx in tires, in 

 such formidable numbers, that whole forests 

 perish, beyond the power of remedy. The 

 pines of the Hartz have thus been destroyed 

 to an enormous extent ; aud in North Amer- 

 ica, at one place in North Carolina, at least 

 ninty tress in every hundred, upon a tract ol 

 two thousand acres, wire swept away by a 

 -mall, black, winged bug, And yet accor- 

 ding to Willson, the historian of American 

 bird-, the people in the l.'nited States were 

 in the habit of destroying the red headed 

 I woodpecker, Ibe great enemy of th< se inserts 



becauat be uccasiooly spoilt an apple. The * 

 same delightful writer, and true naturalist, 

 speaking of the labours of the ivory billed 

 woodpecker, says, ' would it be believed that 

 that the larvx of an insect, or fly, not larger 

 than a graio of rice, should silently and in one 

 season destroy some thousand acres of pine 

 trees, many of them from two to three 

 feet in diameter, and a bundered and fifty feet 

 high ? In some places the whole woodf , as 

 far as you can see around you, are dead, 

 stripped of their bark, there wintiy looking 

 arms and bare trunks bleaching in the sun. 

 and tumbling in ruins before every blast.— 

 The subteraneous larva of a species of beetle 

 (Z'irbus Gthl/us,) has often caused * complete 

 failure of seed corn, as in thedistrict of Halle, 

 in 1812. The corn weevil, which extracts 

 (he flour from the grain, leaving the husks 

 behind, will destroy the eontents of the largest 

 storehouse iu a very short period. The wire- 

 worm, and the turnip-fly are dreaded by every 

 farmer. The ravages of the locust are too 

 well known not to be at once recollected, as 

 an example of the formidable collective pow- 

 er of the insect race. The white ants of torp- 

 lcal countries sweep away whole villages, with 

 as much certainty as a fire or an inundation ; 

 and even ships have been destroyed by lliese 

 indefatigable republics. Our own docks and 

 embankments have been threatened by such 

 minute ravagers. 



'• The enormus injuries which insects cause 

 to man inn thus be held as one reason for 

 ceasing to consider thesiudy of them as an in- 

 significant pursuit ; for a knowledge of their 

 structure, their food, their enemies, and theii 

 general habits, may lead as it often has led. 

 to the means of guarding against their inju- 

 ries. At ibe same time we der've from them 

 both direct and indirect benefits. The hon- 

 ey of the bee, the dye of the cochineal, and 

 the web of the silk worm the advantage of 

 which are obvious, may well be balanced a- 

 gainst the destructive propensities of insects 

 which are offensive to man. But a philosoph- 

 ical siudy of natural history will teach us, that 

 the direct benefits which insects confer upon 

 us are even less important than their general 

 uses in maintaining the economy ol the world 

 The mischiefs which icsult lo us from the ra- 

 pid increase and ibe activity of msecls, are 

 merely results of the very principle I v which 

 they confer upon us numberless indirect ad- 

 vantages. Forc-ts aie swept away by minute 

 flies; but the same agencies relieve us from 

 (hat extreme abundance of vegilable matter, 

 which weu.d render the earth uninhabitable 

 were this excess not periodically dcslroytd- 

 In hot countries, the great business of remov- 

 ing corrupt animal matter, which the vulture 

 and the hyaena imperfectly perform, is effect- 

 ed with certainty and speed by the myriads of 

 insects that spring from the eggs deposited in 

 every'carcass, by some fly necking therein tin 

 means of life for her progeny. Destruction 

 aud production, the great law of Nature, 

 are carried on very greatly thtough the in- 

 strumental]'}' of insects; and the same prin- 

 ciple regulates even the increase of pralicular 

 species of insects themselves. When aphides 

 are so abundant that we know not how lo es- 

 cape their ravages, flocks of lady birds instant- 

 ly cover our fields and gardens to deslroi 

 them. Such considerations as these are 

 thrown out to show that the subject of insects 

 has a great importance — and what portion of 

 the works of Nature has not ? The habits of 

 all God's creatures, whether they are noxious 

 or harmless or beneficial, are irort y objects 

 of our study. II they affect ourselves, in our 

 !iealih or uur possessions, whether for good 



