1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



371 



structive insect. I regret not beiog able to give a 

 better account of it at this tiuie, and still more 

 that the pressure of my official duties necessarily 

 interferes witli the continued and further investi- 

 gation it would otherwise please me to make upon 

 ft. T. W. Harris. 



Cambridge, Mass., July 6, 1853. 



Remarks. — Professor Harris will please accept 

 our tlianks for the above interesting and valuable 

 paper. We can find no account of the worms that 

 appeared in 1791, and are at a loss to know why 

 this insect is called a palmer worm. 



In the book of Joel i : 4, it is written ; "That 

 which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust 

 eaten ; and tliat which the locust hath left hath 

 the canker worm eaten ; and that which the can- 

 ker worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." 

 On reference to the edition of the Scriptures pub- 

 lished by Knight, London, we find the following : 



^^ The palmer worm. — The Hebrew writers gen- 

 erally agree that the four insects mentioned in 

 this verse are different species of the locust ; and 

 this opinion has been supported by Bochart, with 

 his usual ability and research. There is, howev- 

 er, a very strong objection to this conclusion, in 

 the fixct, that the three rendered 'palmer worm,' 

 'canker worm,' and 'caterpillar,' in our version, 

 were not regarded as locusts by the Seventy, who 

 were likely, in this matter, to be acquainted with 

 the real meaning of the Hebrew words, and who 

 wrote much earlier than any of those Hebrew wri- 

 ters who consider all the words to denote varieties 

 of the locust. 



"The original name, palmer worm, is gazam, of 

 the Septuagint. This seems to be the caterpillar 

 which was called by the Roman ab erodendo, from 

 gnawing, as Isidore remarks. The ancients de- 

 scribe it as a worm, which rolls up itself in the 

 leaves of herbs, and especially of the vine, includ- 

 ing perhaps several species of insect under one 

 name. Plautus, an old Latin poet, speaks of it 

 as a mischievous "beast," that rolls itself up in a 

 vine leaf. It does not fly like the locust from 

 plant to plant, or run hither and thither like some 

 other insects, and leave them half eaten, but con- 

 tinues upon the perishing herbage, till, by its 

 sluggish motion and lazy jaws, it has devoured the 

 whole. The ravages made by caterpillars are too 

 familiar to render any expatiation upon them neces- 

 sary. A reference to the respective meaning of the 

 Hebrew, Latin and Greek terms, makes it proba- 

 ble that the same kind of insect was intended by 

 ab erodendo. The Hebrew meaning to cut, to shear. 

 The Greek, to bend, and the Latin gnawing — the 

 first and last pointing out to us its mischievous 

 operations, and the second, the habit of rolling 

 itself up in the leaf, to protect itself against those 

 enemies which are every moment upon the watch 

 to secure it. The Arabic version has dud, which 

 seems to be a general denomination for what we I 



call the larva state of an insect, such as, for in- 

 stance, the caterpillar is in regard to the butter- 

 fly, l)eing then in the second grade of its progress 

 towards the perfect or 2ma^'0 condition." If this 

 gives a correct description, the insect which has 

 come upon us with such a withering power is not 

 the palmer loorm ! 



For the New England Farmer. 

 STATE REFORM SCHOOL. 



Mr. Editor : — I perceive your brother editor of 

 the Culturist and Gazette, at Pittsfield, has kindly 

 copied my remarks, supplementary to your article 

 on the State Reform School at Westborough, and 

 interlarded such exceptions, as tend to put the 

 boot on the other leg. Can it be, sir, that we, and 

 those who were with us, were entirely in error, 

 in our conception of the condition of things at this 

 establishment? I should like to know whether 

 the good doctor has ever been there himself. He 

 expresses a quere, whether it is possible to keep 

 so many boys in a clean and healthy condition. 

 If it is not, I should say, they should never be 

 brought together. Even the State itself has no 

 authority to administer a slow poison, i» the form 

 0^ filth and vermin. 



His notions of "the connection between sin and 

 punishment" are so abstract, that I must leave 

 them to be settled by the theologians of the 

 schools. I make no pretension to such knowledge. 

 If I rightly comprehend the purpose of this Insti- 

 tution, it is for the reception and education of 

 boys during their minority ; of those not suffi- 

 ciently matured in crime, to be fit subjects for 

 punishment in our gaols and houses of correction. 

 He speaks of the benefits that may accrue from 

 keeping alive in their memory, the errors of which 

 they have been guilty. With all due respect to 

 the doctor's opinion, I think it will be better to 

 obliterate the recollection of past errors, by excit- 

 ing a generous ambition to do well. Sir, what 

 hope is there of a man or boy, who constantly feels, 

 that he is looked upon with an eye of jealousy and 

 suspicion ! If you would have improvement, you 

 should inspire confidence. 



"To err is human, to forgive divine." 



June 30, 1853. 



Essex. 



Cows Holding up their Milk. — Itis well known 

 that many cows when they first come in, when 

 their calves are taken from them, will hold up their 

 milk, sometimes to such a degree as almost to dry 

 themselves before they will give it down. "A 

 few years ago," writes a correspondent of an 

 English newspaper, "I bought a young cow which 

 proved to be very wild, and when I took away her 

 first calf she would not give her milk. I had heard 

 it remarked that putting a weight on the cow's 

 back would make her give her milk down. I ac- 

 cordingly drove her into a stable, got a bushel of 

 grain and put it on her back. VVhile in this po- 

 sition she had no power to hold up her milk, for 

 it came down freely. After doing this a few times, 

 and afterwards putting my hand on the back of 

 the cow, it would give way and she would imme- 

 diately give down her milk." The rationale of 

 this treatment appears to be that the weight coun- 

 teracts the upward tendency of the animal's mus- 

 cular action. — Rural New- Yorker. 



