50 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ April, 



■ — especially by the time they reached us in 

 early spring ; but their, fine large size always 

 commanded for them a market in comparison 

 ■with the " poor things" Vve then cultivated in 

 Lancaster county. 



One remarkable "glut" in the market we 

 well remember, when these fine potatoes 

 would not bring ten cents per bushel, and one 

 large dealer shoveled three hundred bushels 

 out into the river rather than sell tliem at less 

 than that price. Some people thought that 

 when the river fell, they could get potatoes 

 for nothing, but when that time came, most 

 of the tubers liad been carried down the 

 stream, and those that remained were wortli- 



less. 



•^ 



WORDS OF CHEER. 



Friend Editnr. — Yours of the 27th ult., and 

 a copy of the Farmer, were duly received. 

 It was like taking an old friend liy the hand, 

 for I began to think it was "all over" with 

 our local journal, and should have thought it 

 a great pity that this great county of Lancas- 

 ter, the acknowledged " Garden of tlie Key- 

 stone State," could not as much as support 

 one farmers' paper in it. 



I am very glad it has not "gone down" yet ; 

 and I hope it will live long yet, and do a great 

 deal of good. The amount of the subscrip- 

 tion, as you say, will lie little felt by the 

 thrifty farmers of our county ; for they often 

 spend more than one dollar within a week or 

 two, for things useless, and which often do 

 them more harm than good. Then why n(5t 

 deny the body a little, and bestow something 

 on that mind which is immortal V Some 

 people are very foolish in this respect, and 

 labor only for " that meat which perisheth." 



Country people generally have a very im- 

 perfect conception of city life. They think 

 that most of those who live in cities and 

 towns, live entirely in "clover and honey," 

 whilst it is more often " briers and thistles." 

 I have experienced both. 



I will do the best T can for the Farmer, 

 with what success you soon shall liear, though 

 I trust I may have good success ; and I will 

 try and contribute sometliing to your columns 

 during the approaching summer. 



Hoping you may long live and enjoy the 

 fruit of your labor. 1 remain as ever your 

 friend, Leolin", EUz'tlKthtmon, March,, 1877. 



We thank our fair correspondent for her 

 high appreciation of our journal, and her sym- 

 pathies in our behalf, and would tliat others 

 would do "likewise." — Ed. 



THE COLORADO BUG ABROAD. 



London, March 13. — The British customs 

 commissioners announce that the Colorado 

 potato beetle has been discovered alive at Bre- 

 men on goods brought from Xew York. The 

 commissioners have issued a circular to the 

 collectors of customs in the United Kingdom 

 directing that the instructions already given 

 for detecting the beetle be ajiplied to potatoes 

 imported from Bremen or any German port. 



The above paragi"aph we clip from a copy 

 of The Sun, (Bait.) issued March 14th, 1S77. 

 Aside from tlie extraordinary feature of mak- 

 ing such announcements, one day in London 

 and the next day in Baltimore, there is noth- 

 ing in the /act, in relation to the bug, that has 

 not been for some time anticipated; and the 

 measures adopted to circumvent it are of that 

 short-sighted policy — in relation to the impor- 

 tation of potatoes — that has been characteris- 

 tic of the precautions of our transatlantic 

 brethren ever since the advent of the "Color- 

 ado potato beetle" in those States lying on 

 the eastern borders of our Union. The "bug" 

 seems to have "been discovered alive at Bre- 

 men on r/nods brouglit from New York," and 

 the "wisdom-chests" of Great Britain, as a 

 preventive, recommend the non-importation 

 ofpotapies from Bremen. There is usually a 

 commercial distinctiim made between goods 

 and produce. If the insect reached tlie conti- 

 nent on "goods," why not interdict the im- 

 portation of goods instead of only potatoes ? 



The insect in question has no particular 

 partiality for potato tubers — never deposits 



its eggs ujwn them — and is never found eat- 

 ing them, unless it can get nothing else ; 

 therefore for one beetle that would be likely 

 to reach the continent of Europe or England, 

 on or among potatoes, fifty would be just as 

 likely to reach those localities in, or on, some 

 other article of bulky commerce, so that its 

 circumvention would involve total non-impor- 

 tation. The best plan, in our view, would 

 be not to trouble themselves about commercial 

 n(m-intercourse, but to institute a strict quar- 

 antine, for a limited period on all vessels com- 

 ing from infested countries; but even this 

 might be obviated liy the institution of a 

 thorough examination of vessels during the 

 voyage, and this should be extended to all 

 packet vessels, with as much vigilance as 

 to trading vessels. About the period when 

 imtatoes are usually shipped from the Uniteil 

 States or Canada, ihe most dangerous brood 

 of tliese insects will be in a state of winter 

 hibernation, and therefore, not likely to be 

 among them at all. 



WRITTEN RECEIPTS BY MAIL. 



We hope our patrons will not require us to 

 send them written recei])ts by mail for sub- 

 scriptions, except to clubs of six or more. 

 The Httle labels pasted on their papers will 

 indicate to them whether their money has 

 been received or not. For instance, those 

 marked "Jan. 77," or simply "77," show 

 that their suliscriptions are paid up to the 

 first of January, 1877, and that they owe us 

 for the present year. Those marked "Jan. 

 7S," or simply " 78," indicate that their sub- 

 scriptions are paid up to the first of January, 

 1878. We cannot send them a loose receipt 

 without an expenditure of tlirce cents postage, 

 besides the cost of envelope, paper, and the 

 labor of writing, unless we resorted to a iios- 

 tal card, to which man}' people object. We 

 hope, too, that they will exonerate us from 

 answering letters by mail, except such as can- 

 not be answered through, the columns of the 

 Farmer. We will cheerfully make any reason- 

 alile concession in cxcejitional cases, but as a 

 general rule, it involves more labor and ex- 

 pense than we are able to undergo. 



Remittances for advertisements are of a 

 quite different character, and are governed 

 by a quite dillerent rule. 



If some of our contributors do not find 

 their productions in the present number of 

 The FAKMEn, it will be because they have 

 been unavoidably crowded out. Having more 

 manuscript on hand than we could accommo- 

 date with space, we were obliged to give the 

 preference to priority of date, excejit in cases 

 where postponement would invalidate the 

 usefulness of the article; moreover several pa- 

 ]iers which should have appeared in our January 

 and February numbers, only "turned up" a 

 month ago, and we, therefore, publish them 

 in this number as the next best thing we could 

 do. They will be duly attended to. 



FERTI,LIZATION, PREVENTIVE AND 

 CURE. 



The following has been clipped from the 

 editorial columns of the Philadephia Press, 

 by a correspondent, and sent to us for inser- 

 tion in the Farmer. If any of our suli- 

 scribers, in their reading, meet an article 

 relating to Agriculture or a kindred subject, 

 that they wish to have more permanently re- 

 corded — and also more conveniently — than it 

 would be in a large folio which, perhaps, they 

 do not file, if they cut them out and .send 

 them to us, we will, in due time, give them 

 pulilicity in the Farmer. In the matter of 

 recuperating the soil, or forestalling or de- 

 stroying noxious insects, any remedy within 

 the bonds of probabilit}' is worthy of consid- 

 eration and trial. — Ed. 



Experiment is constantly making inven- 

 tions and applications of the greatest value to 

 agriculture, which is itself a science, and the 

 very earliest, of no small importance. ' He 

 who makes two blades of grass grow where 



there was only one before is a public lienefac- 

 tur, according to the well-known proverb. The 

 substance called paratln oil is well know for 

 its value when used to lubricate machinery, 

 owing to its power of resisting the oxydiziiig 

 action of the atmospliere, and by its very 

 slow evaporation. There now is the an- 

 nouncement that parafin oil is a substitute for 

 the b- st guano, becoming a clean and fructi- 

 fying manure when poured over dry earth or 

 sand, which should be used as guano is. More 

 important still is the announcement that 

 grain — corn, wheat, oats, barley, beans, peas, 

 &c. — when steeped for a short time in a pre- 

 paration of parafin liecomes repulsive to rats, 

 mice, and the various insects that prey upon 

 these seeds in the earth. The plan is to mix 

 4 oz. of parafin oil through six gallons of rain 

 water, and sprinkle it on the soil before sow- 

 ing or planting, and. at a later period, wlien 

 germination has pal]>ably begun, water be- 

 tween the rows, with the above solution. 

 Seeds of all sorts should be steeiied in or 

 sprinkled with the parafin. It is reported as 

 the result of eight years' experience that this 

 substitute for guano is a remedy for wire- 

 worm, grul), and all garden, field "and vinery 

 jiests. Bii'ds avoid ground thus treated, and 

 Hies, wasps, and other disagreeable winged 

 pests equally avoid it. As a hydro-carbon 

 paratin oil thus acts, and being chemically 

 inert', will not injure the seed, though it gives 

 it temporary flavor which drives away the in- 

 .sectsand other pests that prey uiion the grow- 

 ing produce. Possibly it might successfully 

 deal with the Colorado beetle, which has lately 

 caused so much alarm and done so much in- 

 jury. It is somewhat singular that the e.xper- 

 imeiits whose results are here stated were 

 made in Australia, where cereal jiroduce is 

 wondrously large — where, as Douglas Jerrold 

 says, "you have but to tickle the eartli with 

 a ploughshare, and it smiles into a harvest." 

 — Press. 



THE PARK ASSOCIATION. 



At the annual meeting of the stockholders 

 of the Lco^caster County AgriruHwal Park As- 

 sociation, held at the Stevens House, the re- 

 ports of the Dii'ectors and Treasurer were pre- 

 sented and adopted, and tlie following Board 

 of Directors was elected for the jjresent year : 

 Robert A. Evans, H. Z. Rhoads, A. C. Kep- 

 ler, R. J. McGrann, George Youtz, Abram 

 Hiestand, Levi Sensenig, W. S. Shirk, Jno. 

 Murphy, George Styer and James Stewart. 



THE WEATHER— THE GROUND HOG. 



A correspondent writing over tlie name 

 "Doubting Thomas," and who says he has 

 read our "exhaustive and almost exhanstless 

 panegyrics on the weatlier-wisse woodchuck," 

 asks us to " account for the difference be- 

 tweenSthe mild weather promised by the wood 

 chuck and the hyperborean lilasts that have 

 been chilling us to the marrow for the past 

 few days, with the mercury at zero." The 

 answer is easy : the ground hog iiromiscd us 

 six weeks of warm and pleasant weather, 

 commencing February 1. Tlie six weeks ex- 

 Iiired on Thursdaj* last. The ground hog's 

 contract was then fulfilled to the letter, and 

 like a nolile beast, as he is, he gracefvdly slid 

 into his hole to give Sts. Patrick and Sheelah 

 a chance. You see it, Thomas ? " Blessed 

 are they that have not seen and yet have 

 believed." 



The above paragrajih we clip from the 

 columns of the Intelligencer of March 19, 1877, 

 as one among the many that have ajipeared 

 on the same subject, in various journals the 

 jirescnt season, and especially in the e(junty 

 of Lancaster, where it is somehow supposed 

 that there are more believers in the ground 

 lioij, as a weather prognosticator, than else- 

 where. Anioi>g all these paragraphs, there 

 has been a want of entire harmony, something 

 of a departure from the original theory — in- 

 deed, we may say that the matter has gotten 

 somewhat "mixed up," if not absolutely de- 

 miualized ; and, in order to get it righted we 

 must go back to the " doctrine of the fathers. " 



