116 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[August, 



and ttien (lie. Whether tliey remain in the ground 

 for seventeen years or not is purely eonjectural. 

 Some have supposed that the doctrine of evolution 

 could be verified in their case, that their olTspring 

 becomes either a grub, a caterpillar, or a beetle, and 

 that the chanRe of form goes on for seventeen years, 

 when the original locust reappears. It is to be pre- 

 sumed, however, that even Mr. Huxley himself 

 would consider lil'e too short to attempt to prove liis 

 theories by devoting such a long period to the habits 

 of one insignificant insect, and so their growth still 

 remains a mystery. 



The old proverb as to giving a dog a bad name is 

 exemplified in their case. History, both sacred and 

 profane, teems with so many instances of the desola- 

 tion caused by locusts that it is not surprising when 

 a harmless individual of the same name comes along 

 that the sins of his namesake should be laid at his 

 door. The only danger to be apprehended from 

 those which have now made 1-hemselves known, is 

 that if the female cannot discover a place in which 

 to deposit her eggs, she may dig out a hole and kill 

 the branches of trees thus bored. But those who 

 associate them with the armies which sweep over 

 Eastern countries, destroying all vegetation, may at 

 once disabuse their miuds of such a belief. An in- 

 sect that lives only on dew, that comes out of a 

 scveuteen years' sleep, climbs up a tree, sings his 

 matin song and then dies, murmuring 

 " If so soon that I w^as done for, 

 I wonder what I was begun for," 

 is uot much to be dreaded. There are, of course, 

 individuals superstitious enough to believe that their 

 presence presages, plague, famine or pestilence. If 

 they were to eat up every green thinii', a famine 

 would undoubtedly follow, jjut outside of this, men 

 need not be under any apprehension that fixed and 

 immutable laws will be set aside by an insect which 

 lives a summer day and then either dies or disap- 

 pears. 



The foregoing wa.s put in type for our July 

 number, but was crowded out for tlie want of 

 space; and now, on reading the revised proof, 

 we find it contains several statements that 

 need correction and qualification; and feeling 

 too poor to throw it into pi without using it, 

 we have concluded to let it pass, merely to 

 show how wide of the mark those people shoot 

 who have no .si;//!(. In the first (ilace the fe- 

 male locust (ricada) does not lay her eggs in 

 "lioles of trees," that had i)reviously existed. 

 She goes to work mechanically and makes a 

 series of longitudial incisions, in a brand) 

 just large enough to grasp and give her the 

 proper "purchase," or fulcrum power, and 

 into these incisions, at an angle of about 

 forty-five, she deposits from 20 to .'iO or more 

 eggs, and these eggs arc hatched during the 

 months of July and August, when the young 

 locust either runs down the branch and trunk 

 of the tree to the gromid, or it drops down. 

 We have bred them out of infested branches, 

 and found they always dronped down. They 

 are then yellowish-white, as nimljlc as an ant, 

 and aliout as large as the neuter of the black 

 wood-ant. This insect never deposits itseggs 

 in dead wood; it must be living; otherwise we 

 doubt whether they would ever incubate; 

 they need not only heat but some moisture. 

 Those branches the ends of which we kept in 

 water, the eggs incubated, but in those with- 

 out water, they ".shriveled," or dried up, 

 and never liatched. The perforated branches 

 eventually die and are broken off by the winds 

 — or many of them are — and this prtming is 

 .sometimes beneficial to large trees. It is 

 only in young trees that any injurious effects 

 usually follow, or in the Kmaller' kinds of trees. 

 In the .second place, the aVjove notions about 

 their "evolution" are not only exceedingly 

 fabulous, but they are exceedingly /??)ulous. 

 There is nothing better establisheil tliaii that 

 their larval dcvelopnumt recpnres from thir- 

 teen to .seventeen years— according to species 

 {V7 decim or 13 decini). We liave dug up the 

 larra when five, nine, eleven, and fourteen 

 years old, and in the spring of their seiiten- 

 deceimial aiijiearance we have traced their bur- 

 rows to a depth of three or four feet. We 

 have witnessed their appearance in this part 

 < if Lanca.ster county fom- times; namely, in 

 1817, in lS:i4, in 18,51 and in ISIjS, and we 

 have always found seventeen years lietween 

 their ap|>earances, almost to a day. It ap- 

 pears to us that there must be thousands of 

 people in the country who liave better oppor- 

 tunities to luake and record observations than 

 we have, and yet at each occurrence of these 

 insects, the most stupid things, in refereucc 

 to them, are published. 



COLORADO BEETLE IN ENGLAND. 



In the House of Commons, on Thursday, June 28, 

 Mr. M. Stewart asked the Vice President of the 

 Council if his attention had been called to a state- 

 ment in the P<dl Mall Gazette announcing that the 

 Colorado beetle had made its appearance in Germany, 

 and if precautions would be taken to prevent its in- 

 troduction into England. In reply, Lord Landon 

 said : "I am not surprised that my honorable friend 

 should have addressed to me a cpiestion on this sub- 

 ject, owing to the great interest felt in it. I have to 

 inform him that since I saw that announcement in 

 the papers I have communicated with the Foreign 

 Ollice. They at once telegraphed to certain ports, 

 and this afternoon, I am sorry to say, they have re- 

 ceived a report confirming the statement. The tele- 

 gram says indications of these insects in the shape of 

 numerous larva> were found in the field near Mulheim. 

 The field was fired with sawdust and petroleum. 

 One beetle was seen on the wing. [Laughter.] It 

 is a very serious mattci', because it was feared the 

 beetles might spread. [Cheers.] Upon receiving 

 this information, the Privy Council at once wrote to 

 the Customs, requesting them to instruct the otEcers 

 at the various ports to keep a lookout lor the 

 arrival of these destructive insects. The Commis- 

 sioners of Customs, I may state, have long been alive 

 to the importance of this subject. So far back as 

 March, 187.5, they issued a circular to their officers 

 to examine carefully into all their cargoes of potatoes 

 coming from America, and destroy by fire all particles 

 of potato stalks, as well as all loose soil. In Novem- 

 ber, ISTO, again the Commissioners of Customs issued 

 an engraving of the insect, and we have thought lit 

 to republish and to circulate throughout the country 

 a memorandum published last October by the Minis- 

 ter of Agriculture in Canada, describing the habits 

 of the insects, and showing the best means of getting 

 rill of it. If my honorable friend would like copies 

 of these papers, I shall be glad to lay them on the 

 table." [Hear, hear.] 



The pcjtato bug, whose arrival at Cologne, Ger- 

 many, was reported a few days ago, has gone on to 

 Bucharest as a war correspondent of a Colorado 

 paper. 



Perhaps never since the world began has 

 there been any other insect, that has created 

 so iirofound and so widespread a sensation as 

 the "Colorado Potato-beetle." The Egyp- 

 tian, the Asiatic, and the Rocky Mountain 

 Locusts, may have lieeu more tlestructive 

 within certain limits, but none of these liave 

 been so cosmopolitan in their geographical 

 range. If they once locate themselves per- 

 manently on the continent of Europe, we can 

 not see why they may not overrun all of 

 Europe, Asia and Africa, within a certain 

 belt of latittide. Just now they seem to bo ex- 

 ercising the English Parliament, the German 

 Diet, aud the French Assembly, quite as 

 much as does the "Eastern question," and 

 their discussions on the subject are likely to 

 be as "wise and otherwise," as other grave de- 

 liberative bodies. When they expect to "head 

 oir' the potato-beetle by the non-importation 

 of potatoes, we certainly do not think they 

 are acting very wisely, for there are ninety 

 eliances for the Colorado-beetle to reacli Eu- 

 rope by some other cargo, where there are ten 

 for their reaching there in a cargo of potatoes. 

 They are fond of riding eastward, just for the 

 love of the thing, whether in a cargo of wheat, 

 potatoes or stoue-coal. We consider the issue 

 of good engravings of the beetles and its larva, 

 as among the l)est of its preventive measures. 

 It came to Peun.sylvania on the railroad, but 

 not in a cargo of potatoes. 



E. N. FRESHMAN & BROS. 



These gentlemen, by their uniform efficiency, 

 faithfulness, correctness, and probity as advertising 

 agents in Cincinnati, have commended themselves to 

 the press with whom they have had business for 

 many years. What we particularly ci^mnicnd now, 

 as we have had occasion previously to do, is their 

 thorough attention to their work for the advertisers 

 who employ them. No fault of the publisher escapes 

 their vigilant supervision. An error of typograjiliy, 

 of omission, of position never escapes them. They 

 can and do attend more faithfully to the business of 

 their p.itrons than the advertiser himself can. At 

 the same time they arc wholly resjionsible, wholly 

 trustworthy as the agents of the press, ami therefore 

 we say again, we have found oiu' relations with them 

 throughout an extended experience to be exception- 

 ally pleasant and satisfactory. We can not too high- 

 ly reconimcnil them to the advertisers of the country 

 on the one lianti, or to the press of the country on 

 the other hand. They are entirely reliable in every 

 sense of the term, and always will be. > 



The above, from the columns of the Bur- 

 lington Hawkeye, is merely a reiteration of 



, larva. 

 Natural History.- 



tlie general sentiment of all who have had 

 business relations with the Advertising Agen- 

 cy of E. N. Fbe-shman & BROs.,of Cincin- 

 natti, O. ; and, the very emphatic endorse- 

 ment of the Hawkeye Publishing Co., through 

 its worthy management, would be at any 

 time, to us, a sufficient guarantee that any 

 confidence i)laced in the above named adver- 

 tising linn would bo worthily reposed. 



APPLE TREE INSECTS. 

 The frillowing article on the insects that in- 

 fest apple trees is by Professor A. .1. Cook, of 

 the Michigan Agricultural College, and is ex- 

 tracted froiii the report of the Michigan State 

 Board of Agriculture for 1875 : 

 Apple Tree Borer (Saperda Candida— Fab.) 

 This pest, which has been so 

 long in our country, is widely 

 distributed in our State. Very 

 few, if any, orchards are exempt 

 from its attacks. Not that it 

 always, or generally, totally de- 

 stroys the trees ; still those suf- 

 ering from its attacks are al- 

 ways lessened in vitality, and it 

 uot unfreriueutly happens that 

 the trunks become so riddled 

 with their tunnels that the tree 

 becomes a prey to the hard 

 winds, which are sure to come 

 with each returning year. 

 —The beautiful brown beetle, 

 with its two stripes of white, appears early in June, 

 and thence on through July. So the egg-laying is 

 principally done in these two months. The grub, 

 whitish, with a round black 

 head, eats through the bark, 

 and then usually passes in and 

 up, freijuently eating through 

 the branches far out towards 

 the extremity. I have fre- 

 quently found apple tree limbs 

 no larger than my thumb with 

 a tuniiel as large as a pipe 

 stem. These larv» push their 

 sawdust-like particles back of 

 them and out of the hole where 

 they first entered, so that it is 

 not difficult to find them. They 

 live and feed on the wood of 

 the tree for three years ; hence 

 we see how that a single larva may bore, if left un- 

 disturbed, for a distance of several feet.' They finally 

 bore a hole to exit, fill it slightly with their sawdust, 

 and a little back of the same make a cocoon of their 

 own chips, in which they pupate. Soon after, in June 

 and July, the beetles again appear. 



Remedies. — Soapy mixtures 

 are found to be noxious to these 

 beetles,so that in their egg lay- 

 ing they are found to avoid I rees 

 to which such an application 

 has been made. Thus we may 

 hope to escape all danger by 

 washing the smooth trunks of 

 our trees early in June, and 

 again early in July, with soft 

 soap, or a very strong solution 

 of the same. T. T. Lyon, now of 

 South Haven, whose judgment 

 is very reliable in such matters, 

 urges that we always use the 

 soap itself. 

 We should always examine the trees carefully in 

 September, and wherever we find this pernicious 

 grub's sawdust shingle out, we should give him a 

 call. Perhaps we may reach him with a wire thrust 

 into the hole, aud by a vigorous ramming crush the 

 culprit. If we have doubts about the crushing, we 

 should follow him with the knife ; but in cutting out 

 the borers too great care cannot be taken to wound 

 the trees just as little as possible. This heroic 

 method is sure, and reciuires very little time, and no 

 person who takes [iride in his orchard, or looks to it, 

 as a source of profit, can afford to neglect this Sep- 

 tember examination, or the previous application of 

 soap, to which it is supplementary. 

 Flat-Headed Borer (Chrysobothris F"emora- 

 ta— Fab.) 

 At the ])rescnt this borer is quite as ruinous iu our 

 State as the preceding one, and I should not think it 

 strange if in a well-balanced account it was found 

 even to surpass the otlier in the evil which it works 

 to our fruit interests. I have seen young orchards 

 nearly ruined the first summer alter setting, by this 

 devastator. Not long since a nurseryman came from 

 a distant part of the State to consult me as to the 

 ravages of this pest. He said that during the past 

 summer, in some regions of the State, more than 

 half the trees he sold were killed by this scourge, 

 and of course he was unjustly blamed. At present 

 no nurseryman should sell trees without throwing 

 in advice in regard to practicing against this devasta- 



c, imago of Saperda 

 randitla. 



