1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



597 



the bugs had not clustered. They were ev- 

 idently hungry, for they had cleaned off the 

 foliage from quite a number of hills of pota- 

 toes that were untouched the night before. 

 I stamped them some again, even if it zvas 

 Sunday; but the rain soon put a stop to mj- 

 work. I managed to kill a good many of 

 them, however, by crushing them into the 

 soft dirt; and we had such a heavy rain dur- 

 ing the day that I hope they are there yet. 



While I was at church a neighbor called to 

 say that the bugs were just ruining my pota- 

 toes up in the swamp. I was agreeably sur- 

 prised, however, when I got up there, to find 

 they had stripped the tops in only one corner 

 of the patch, and they were New Queens, al- 

 most ripe, so it did not matter very much. 

 Now, after stripping that one corner, every 

 l3ug had left, leaving about half an acre un- 

 touched. Right from the swamp garden they 

 went, evidently over to my Bovees, fully forty 

 rods distant. In going there they went in an 

 almost straight line southeast; and when they 

 struck the Bovees they marched right through 

 them toward the southeast. When I stamped 

 them into the dirt I commenced on the east 

 side so as to chase them over out of the pota- 

 to-patch. Why should these bugs persist in 

 going in a certain direction ? If I am correct, 

 after they had got out of the patch they went 

 away from the field, pushing ahead in their 

 course, even though the greater part of the 

 field they left was untouched. I wish our ex- 

 periment stations would tell us more about 

 these queer insects. But, oh my ! don't they 

 strip a potato-patch quick when there are 

 enough of them to work to advantage ? I have 

 never succeeded in poisoning them with Paris 

 green or any thing else; and this time I did 

 not try any remedy except grinding them into 

 the ground. I think they are especially bad 

 this season, as I have heard of them several 

 times in this vicinity. Can anybody tell a 

 better way to manage them than the one I 

 have named? When I was a boy folks used 

 to drive them out of the patch with a bundle 

 of whips, and I have known them to be made 

 to fly away. But all that we have don't seem 

 to fly " worth a cent." 



MORE ABOUT THE BLISTER-BEETI<ES. 

 Later. — After we had conquered the bugs 

 on the Bovees I made a tour of inspection all 

 over our different patches. Down in the 

 creek bottom, among my extra earlies, I 

 found more bugs to the square inch than I 

 ever before saw or heard of. When we dis- 

 turbed them on a hill of potatoes the whole 

 ground was literally a moving, living mass. 

 I began to study up some quicker way — a 

 way that would not take so much human mus- 

 cle. A man was cultivating potatoes near by. 

 We got an old phosphate-sack, and filled it 

 half full of soil. Then we hitched the horse 

 to the bag of dirt and dragged it between the 

 rows. The soil was just right after the rain 

 to pulverize, so that the bag made a clean 

 smooth furrow with sides so steep and loose 

 with the soft dirt, that the bugs, when they 

 once got into the furrow, could not crawl out. 

 They would just roll over and over, then 

 when we drove them off from the hills they 



were down between the furrows rolling over 

 each other on account of the loose dirt on the 

 sides. The bag of dirt was not heavy enough 

 to pulverize them sufficiently, so the driver 

 stood on it. It made old Mike grunt some to 

 pull it, but it demolished the bugs by the 

 thousands. As the potatoes were almost ripe 

 the bugs did not do much harm; and, in fact, 

 I should not have cared so much about the 

 bugs, only I did not want them to get over to 

 a neighboring patch where some choice late 

 potatoes were just coming up. We made the 

 horse go up and down in the furrows as far as 

 the bugs were working until I had made al- 

 most a clean job of it. Now, I want you to 

 give me credit for having invented that bag 

 of dirt. I thought of a log of wood, a sap- 

 trough filled with stones, and some sort of 

 cultivator to bury them deep; but I think the 

 bag "takes the cake." 



EARLY POTATOES. 



Not only the bugs but the blight has struck 

 the most of them. The first to go were the 

 Red and White Bliss Triumph. And this cor- 

 roborates what our Ohio Experiment Station 

 said about the Triumphs being more suscepti- 

 ble to blight than other kinds. The Triumphs 

 were affected first, and now nearly all of a 

 dozen kinds have blackened foliage with the 

 black shriveled leaves beaten off by the rain 

 until one is puzzled sometimes to know 

 whether it is blight or bugs that have stripped 

 the branches. What potato, do you suppose, 

 stands blight better than any others ? Why, it 

 is our old friend the New Queen. Vaughn's 

 Extra Early comes next. The New Queen 

 seems as bright and fresh as potatoes just 

 coming up; but perhaps this is somewhat be- 

 cause it is rather later than the extra earlies. 

 The potatoes are, however, almost as good- 

 sized as any of them, unless it is the Bovee, 

 which certainly has produced larger tubers up 

 to the present time than any of the extra ear- 

 lies. In fact, it has given us a very good 

 yield already; but the vines are still growing 

 as well as they can, with blight and bugs both 

 to hinder. 



THAT BIG POTATO THAT WAS PLANTED IN 

 THE GREENHOUSE. 

 I do not think I shall succeed in getting 100 

 bushels from one potato in one year, as I 

 talked about last October, for I made a balk 

 of it to begin with. The soil in our green- 

 house across the way has been there ever since 

 the greenhouse was started, five or six years 

 ago. We have added more old well-rotted 

 stable manure every winter, but the beds have 

 never been cleaned out and the contents re- 

 newed, even if old greenhouse men did tell 

 me I would have trouble. You see, the soil 

 over there is never frozen as outdoor ground 

 is, and the result seems to be, for greenhouse 

 work, that it gets full of fungus or something 

 of that sort. We had a little trouble last win- 

 ter. This winter we had one particular bed 

 where neither lettuce, tomatoes, nor potatoes 

 would grow at all. It was rich and in good 

 order; watered by sub-irrigation; but strong 

 thrifty plants, set out with the utmost care, 

 would die right down. The seeds would 



