AGRICULTURE AN ART., 9 



extensive labors of science depend. Many entertain the idea 

 that the study of tlie natural sciences ought to find the cure, 

 remedy, preventive to every injury occurring from bird, insect, 

 or vegetable depredator. "What, it is asked, is the use of ento- 

 mology, if you naturalists cannot tell us how to drive away the 

 canker worm, striped bug, caterpillar ? Such an ol)jection 

 is, however, not worthy a generous mind. The same would lie 

 against all the learned professions, as they are called, if pressed 

 to the ultimate limit. 



Tiic diflfercnce between observation and patient inquiry on 

 the part of the farmer and a refusal to see and observe, is that 

 between ignorance and inquiry — darkness and illumination. 

 Would he be considered wise who should refuse a laiitern in a 

 dark night, because it were not a lighted gas jet or the sun ? 

 A natural inclination or an early taste for such observation 

 cannot be too much commended. Tiie onion crop has severely 

 suffered from an offensive larva, whose habits are worth noting 

 from year to year. The remedy against it has not yet been 

 discovered — perhaps it never will ; it is better to know your 

 foe and its capabilities to miscliief than to persevere in the 

 culture of tliat root crop against so many disadvantages. I 

 should hardly hope to prophecy a future exemption from any 

 application or from any new variety of the plant, after what 

 has been tried by so many farmers. The habits of insects are 

 mysterious as yet, and we can only hope to profit by eternnl 

 vigilance. It seems significant to me, however, that the fly 

 belongs, apparently, to the scatophagous tribes, which nestle 

 and deposit their eggs in particular kinds of manures especially. 

 Total abandonment of this vegetable as field crop for a series 

 of years, may, by depriving each generation of the proper nidus 

 for its larva, cause its extermination ; and though we may 

 mourn when we think of the " leeks of Egypt," our children 

 may enjoy by our abstinence greater advantages when the root 

 can be cultivated again with success. 



It is too common, in absence of other knowledge, to infer 

 that what is known abroad of similar facts, is identical with 

 what we desire to know at home. But I think it may be con- 

 cluded that every cultivated country has its own peculiar disor- 

 ders, diseases and parasitical complaints. I would speak more 

 particularly of plants, which are more familiar to me ; and 

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