THE GE?^i:SEE FARMER. 



267 



d cat off at a blow with the right; and unless 

 ry large, by commencing on the outside row, 

 3 three hills can be cut up and carried to the 

 lok at once — the whole being done in far less 

 ae than it takes us to describe it. The stook is 

 d, bound at the top with suckers, or rye straw, — 



if you are a poor cultivator, with Aveeds, 

 Cutting up corn in this way, though heavy work, 

 to us, with a good hook and spirited associates, 

 i of the pleasantest of harvesting operations. 



soon as the ears are well dried, the corn may 

 husked, and the stalks tied up in bundles and set 



again in large stocks, where they can remain 



sufficiently dry to stack. 



t is well to draw in a few stooks and stand them 

 on the barn floor, where they can be husked on 

 ly days. 



;!orn stalks are quite valuable as fodder, if well 

 ed, and the corn was cut before it was injured 

 frost. They are, however, often mildewed and 

 dered comparatively valuless by being stored 

 ly in a large bay when not sufficiently dry. An 

 asional layer of dry straw would do much to 

 vent this ; and if a large sack was filled with 

 ff or cut straw, and the bundles placed round 

 1 the middle of the bay or stack, pulling up the 

 k as you ascend, it would leave a kind of chim- 



through which the moisture would ascend and 

 s off. This is a common practice in stacking 

 lip hay in England, and is found very efficacious. 



PLANT LICE- APHIDES. 



^HESE are among the most extraordinary insects 

 ,h which the farmer or gardener is familiar. 

 jy are found upon almost every plant, and upon 

 parts of the plant. They are exceedingly pro- 

 5, and the succulent leaves and extremities of 

 nts will often become coated with a living mass 

 these insects in a very short time. These are 

 lally wingless, consisting of the young and fe- 

 les only; the winged individuals or males, ap- 

 .ring only at particular seasons, and iifter pairing 



■.h the females soon perish. They are small, 

 d, and soft, and of a gieenisli tint, covered with 



white down-like spots. They remain fixed, as it 

 were, to the plants by means of their tubular 

 beaks, through which they suck out the sap, and 

 when surcharged with juice they get rid of it by 

 discluxrging it through two little tubes at the ex- 

 tremity of their bodies. This juice has been given 

 the name of honey dew, and is greedily devoured 

 by the ants, which may be observed in great num- 

 bers on plants where the aphides abound. The ants 

 are said to suck the tubes of these insects, from 

 which circumstance they are in some localities 

 known as the ant's milch cows. Our engravings 

 represent the species found 

 on the leaves of the cab- 

 bage. Aphis irassica. Fig. 

 ^ ^^^^ ^1 *''^® i^ale, greatly magni- 



3 .^ff" ^1^^^ &ed\ fig. 2, natural size; 



fig. 3, female, natural size; 

 fig. 4, magnified. They are 

 largely preyed upon by va- 

 rious other insets, among 

 the principal of wliich are 

 the lady birds and the Aphis 

 lions. They may be destroyed by washing the 

 plants with soap suds or a weak solution of potash. 

 "We give a cut and short description of the AjjMs 

 lion^ (fig. 5,) an insect belonging to the order Neu- 



Fig. 5. — APHIS LION — EGGS, LARVA, AND PERFECT INSECT. 



roptera. The larva makes its appearance in May, 

 and may be observed walking about on the leaves 

 of the plants, resembling more a mass of cottony- 

 hke matter than an insect. This covering is com- 

 posed of the fragments of the skins of aphides it 

 has destroyed, which it tlirows ui)on its back after 

 sucking out the vitals. It changes into a pupa at 

 the latter end of summer and remains in that state 

 through the winter, and the fly emerges in the 

 spring and lays its eggs upon the leaves of plants, 

 attaching them at the end of a long silken thread 

 hanging from the leaf, giving them the appearance 

 of numerous fungi. 



