The Lancaster Farmer. 



Prof; S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., AUGUST, 1877. 



Vol. CL No. 8. 



STRIKES RIOTS. 



Strikes .iiul riots liave occurred in our 

 country during politiciil convulsions, liiian- 

 cial dis.aster.s, coniiucrcial depressions, and 

 trade reverses, almost IVoui the fountlation of 

 our repuliliean form of governiuent ; but we 

 cannot recall a siuule instance in which the 

 farmers of the country, by preconcert handed 

 themselves together, and in dcliance of law 

 and order, liave struck for higher prie(^s, and 

 luivc '.hrealened or cierccd those who saw lit to 

 sell lower th.an they. And more, much more 

 than this. Through high or low prices in the 

 products of the farm ; through drought or 

 flood ; through insect devastations. rin(lerpest 

 or hog-cholera ; through .storms and blights ; 

 through "pestilence and famine," indeed, 

 through all the vicissitudes of time, and 

 health, and tide, the American farmer still 

 "pursues the even tenor of his way." The 

 large manufactm'ing establishnn'iits, the 

 machine shops, the railroad companies, the 

 iron furnaces, and the rolling mills, may 

 either close their doors to their workmen, or 

 curtail their number and their w.ages, because 

 the future prospects do not manifest a large 

 enough margin of profit, or the suiphis on 

 hand cannot be " realized" as it should. l!ut 

 it is not so with the farmer. Whether he 

 realizes six per cent., three per cent., one per 

 cent., or no per cent — whether his toil is 

 rewarded by twenty bushels, ten bushels or 

 live bushels to the acre, or whether his labor 

 proves an entire failure, he never for a mo- 

 ment reliniiuishes his occupation, but goes on 

 with renewed energy, year in and year out, 

 the same through adverse seasons as he does 

 Ihrou'jh prosperous ones. 



Well may the "great e.xponnder of the 

 eonslitution" have written " The Fitrmer is 

 lilt /owiilff of ciri7i2(((.(Vm." Whoever heard 

 tell of a farmer, with sacrilegious hands, ap- 

 plying the incendiary's toteh and destroying 

 "fifty thousand bushels of wheat" by lurid 

 flames, to gratify a diabolical feeling of 

 revenge V 



AVhoeyer heard of a baud of lawless farmers 

 visiting their lirollier farmers, and compelling 

 them to withdraw their ])l(i\vsliares from the 

 soil, and leave their fields run fallow V It 

 is true, that when they felt themselves to be 

 the victims of extortion, by railro.ads, by ex- 

 orbitant middlemen, and by " corner" ojiera- 

 tions in produce and farming implements, 

 they formed peaceful organizations, by w.iy 

 of the Grangnmd co-operative establishments, 

 as .a means of domestic jirotection ; but all 

 was conducted "indecency and in order;" 

 .for, being the founders of civilization, in all 

 their relations to their fellow-men they subor- 

 dinated them.selvcs to the dictates of that 

 civilization, .as a living principle of their do- 

 mestic life. 



It would be well for our country and her 

 people, if a few hundred thousands of the 

 elements that compose strike-riots were to be- 

 come iTidustrious fanners, and. avail them- 

 s<>,lves of the civilizing intlnenees of the fartn. 

 It would be well for (nu' government, and our 

 civil and social institutions, if she would 

 devise means to set up the deserving poor 

 men on farms, and give them an opiiortunity 

 to work out their own domestic and soQJal 

 salvation. There is room, enough for all ; we 

 are too much coneentrated. We must become 

 more diffused among the great vacancies of 

 the west. 



I'erh.aps farmers themselves do not realize 

 as they .shouhl, the vast difference in circum- 

 stances and social condition that exi.sts be- 

 tween them and the rest of mankind, taken as 

 a class; else there woulil not be so many of 

 them yearning after the sometimes teniptiiig, 

 but alw.ays dubious, occupatiinis of the tnvrh. 

 It is true, farming has its drawbacks, even 



when everything seems to be prosperous on 

 the farm. The farmers are exposed to the 

 annoyances, to the dangers, and the devas- 

 tations of tliat pernicious element which is 

 the fruitful source of riot, of pillage, of con- 

 flagration and of blood.shed, iti the cities and 

 the towns. The trdmpl has become a for- 

 midable barrier to the safety and tranquillity 

 of the farmer; not on account of the contribu- 

 tions levied upon his larder, for these he is 

 always willing to give to the worthy, weary 

 wayfarer; but on account of their robberies, 

 their burglaries, and their incendiarisms. 

 When the country becomes relieved of these, 

 it will mark a glorious epoch in the history of 

 the fann, as well as in the etitij'e country. 

 The late wide-spread turbulent, and destruc- 

 tive strike-riots which have occurred, exhibit 

 a humiliating aspect in initiating the second 

 century of American independence. They 

 show tliat a climax has been attained which 

 is a disgrace to humanity, and es|)ecially that 

 portion of huinanity, which, par e.ccdJenrr 

 claims to be politically and socially free. IJiit, 

 whatever may have been the inciting causes 

 — whether just or unjust — it was not the work 

 of fanners, either as actors, abettors, or as 

 sympathizers. They cheerfully subordinate 

 themselves to "the powers that are ordained," 

 even though they should endure present suf- 

 fering; 



"In linpes ttLit tlicy'll be riffhtcd 



By Him who rules on high." 



"WAR UPON INSECTS." 



In an editorial of the iVcw Era of Tuesday, 

 .Tidy ■24,the editor w;vs pleased to refer to me in 

 relation to the subject involved in the caption 

 of this paper — a subject by no means of as 

 easy a solution as the "Eastern question." In 

 many respects the "war upon insects" in- 

 volves many complications, especially with 

 those who are not able to discriminate be- 

 tween the species, or between the different 

 developmental changes of the same species. 

 Take as a familiar example, for instance, the 

 "Colorado potato-beetle," which has some 

 lifteeii or twenty parasitic or predaceous spe- 

 cies, which prey upon it in its various transfor- 

 mations, from the egg through its larval and 

 pupal periods, up to its adult development. 

 J'aris (jrcen of a proper quality, and syste- 

 matically applied, is now reganled as a sove- 

 reign remedy for the destruction of this in- 

 sect, and indeed the only external application 

 that is at all reliable in most cases. But in 

 the application of this poison there is a liabil- 

 ity of also destroying our parasitic and preda- 

 ceous auxilaries which prey upon it; and this 

 liability is only increased when we resort to 

 the various traps that have been invented for 

 the capture of this insect. "Hand-iiicking," 

 with the discrinunation above alluded to,i8the 

 only system upon which an intelligent war- 

 fare against the potatii-beetle can be waged, 

 because our arms are then only pointed 

 against our foes, and we save our friends. 



Another complication in using the weapon 

 of Pai'is green in a warfare against the Colo- 

 rado iHitato-beetle, is the exposure to death of 

 othci' and larger animals which may hapiien 

 to iirey upon it after it has been treated with 

 this poison. A report came up only a few 

 d.ays ago, of a great tnortality among sparrows 

 and other birds that h.ad been feeding upon 

 lhe.se insects after they had been charged 

 with Paris green; and only a month ago, a 

 farmer in this county lost three or four valu- 

 able cows that happened to have access to a 

 mixture of Paris green and shipstuff, which 

 he had prepared for the beetles. I do not 

 mention these things to di.scour.agc the use of 

 this remedy, or any other remedy, nor to ar- 

 rest any form of warfare that may be waged 

 iigainst them; but to admonish people to be 



careful and act intelligently in their systems 

 of warfare, just as any discreet General would 

 act who expected to con<picr his enemies. 

 Now, this state of things, to a greater or a 

 less extent, exists in reference to a warfare 

 against any of our insect enemies. Xightlly- 

 ing insects, for instance, are attr.acted by lu- 

 minous bodies, and therefore it is recommen- 

 ded to kindle bonfires in infested districts into 

 which those insects will fly and Ije destroyed; 

 but this implies an indiscriminate slaughter 

 of "all ag«.s, sexes and conditions" — friends 

 as well as foes. On one occasion, at "Shenk'a 

 Ferry," I captured about one hundred in- 

 sects—attracted by a globe lamp— bet ween can- 

 dlelight and 12 o'clock at night, and nearly 

 three-fourths of them were insect friends. 



On another occasion, a former president of 

 the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society sent 

 me a large number of insects which he had 

 captured in bottle traps hung on his trees to 

 catch "codjings" and "curculios," more 

 than one half of which were either friends or 

 entirely innoxious ; and iimong the whole 

 number (between SOO and 1,000) there was but 

 a single "curculio," and not half a dozen 

 that could be recognized as "codling moths." 

 True, there were a goodly number of Arc- 

 tiims and Agr(jtHins, the parents of various 

 species of cut-worms. The only redeeming 

 characteristic of such non-discriminating rem- 

 edies is that, if we can succeed in destroying 

 our enemies at the sacrifice of our friends, 

 there will be little need of the presence of the 

 latter; but this is rebutted again by the fact 

 that human efforts are spasmodic, and often 

 ill-timed; whereas the operations of our para- 

 sitic .and predaceous friends are constant, 

 and guided by an instinctive intelligence that 

 never fails thena. 



The safest plan to contend with insects is 

 to acquire a specific knowledge of them — 

 their times and pl.aces of appearance, disap- 

 pearance and reappearance — their transfor- 

 mations and developments; the injuries they 

 inflict and the benefits they confer; and if 

 these things are deemed beneath the dignity 

 of human study, then we must learn to sub- 

 mit with as much resignation as we can to 

 their various infestations; but it must ulti- 

 mately come to this, regard it with as much 

 contempt or indifference as we may. 



As to forestalling in.sects by discontinuing 

 to cultivate such trees and plantsas they seem 

 partial to, the thing would be quite impracti- 

 cable in most of the very woi-st cases. Take 

 for instance the "Striped apple-tree borer," 

 which originally confined its operations to the 

 common hawthorn, and, fifty years ago, was 

 so destructive to the hawthorn hedges of the 

 Eastern .States. Now, it rarely attacks the 

 hawthorn .at all; but instead thereof, it pre- 

 fers the various kinds of apple, the pear and 

 the quince, simply because these trees afford 

 it a wider field for its multiplied develoimient 

 and more abundant and agreeable aliment. 

 And then the "curculio," which, in its early 

 history was content with wild cherries, vege- 

 table excrescences, and perhaps wild plums; 

 now it prefers the ciiltiv.ated plums, the peach, 

 the apricot, the apple, the nectarine, and the 

 cultivated cherry and pear. It is the same 

 with the "codliii'i," an introduced species, 

 which originally must have infested the wild 

 crab a] >i lies of Europe; liut now it infests all 

 our cultivated apples and pears, as well as the 

 peaches; and some days ago I took numbers 

 of them out of apricots. The famous Colo- 

 rado beetle, in emergencies, will feed on at 

 least a dozen different kinds of plants, even 

 night shade, hen-bane, thistle, and miillen. 

 It would be dillicult to circumvent these in- 

 sects by non-cultiv.ation, and the same may 

 be said of several scores of others, to ii.articu- 

 larize wjiicli would extend this paper to a 



