i8 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



ti'eljruai-y 



he will provide them in due season ; repair 

 the old ones, examine and I'eglaze, if need be, 

 the sashes of his forcing-frames long before 

 they are actually required, overhaul his stock 

 of seeds, and make out a list of those which 

 may be needed, to the end that tliey may be 

 in hand before the time of sowing; thus not 

 only his interest but his personal comfort will 

 be advanced, and those little trifles which 

 perplex the careless and improvident, may be 

 made sources of enjoyment. With each duty 

 discharged at the proper time, with "a place 

 for everything, and everything in its place," 

 many rough spots in life's journey may be 

 made smoother. — Landreth''s Bur. Beg. 



LANCASTER COUNTY PUBLICATIONS. 



It is said that when Benjamin Franklin 

 solicited the hand of "Deborah" in marriage, 

 she referred him to her mother ; and that 

 prudent matron, before she gave her consent, 

 inquired what he proposed to do for a living. 

 He replied that he was a printer, and that he 

 proposed to start a new paper. ''A new 

 paper !" quoth the old lady. " A new paper ; 

 why, bless me, there are two alkbady in 

 Pennsylvania ;" and therefore she could not 

 see how he was going to make a living by 

 starting a third one. 



At the late Centennial Exposition, in Fair- 

 mount, there were over eight thousand Ameri- 

 can publications represented. What would 

 Franklin and his mother-in-law have thought 

 and said could they have witnessed this extra- 

 ordinary spectacle ? We copy from the JVcw 

 Era the following list and names of those 

 published now in Lancaster county — thirty- 

 tvv'o in number ; and we know that the bosom 

 of every intelligent reader will swell with 

 pride when he contemplates the magnitude of 

 the number at the present day, and he would 

 not wish to have that number a single paper 

 less. 



A County Well Supplied with Home Read- 

 ing Matter. 



There are at present published in the county 

 of Lancaster, three daily papers, the New Era, 

 Examiner and Exjjress, and the Intelligencer. 



Twenty-two weeklies — The New Era, 

 Yolksfreund, Examiner and Express, Intelli- 

 gencer, Inquirer, Owl, Laterne, Friends'' Jour- 

 nal, The Friend, The Blade, Marietta Begister, 

 Marietta Times, Columbia Spy, Herald and 

 Couraiit, Elizabethtown Chronicle, Mount Joy 

 Herald and Mount Joy Star, Manheim Senti- 

 nel, New Holland Clarion, Strasburg Free 

 Press and Milton Grove News. 



And eight monthlies — The School Jour- 

 nal, The Lancaster Farmer, Church 

 Monthly, Sling and Stone, High School Journal, 

 The Budget, The Sunbeam. The Wide Awake, 

 and we understand two additional monthlies 

 will be started the present week. 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Reamstown, Jan. 20th, 1878. 



Prof. S. S. Rathvon — Dear fiir : Would you have 

 the kindness to inform me on the following pomo- 

 logical subject : I desire to start a peach orchard, on 

 a tract of sandstone soil, i. e., mountain soil, on the 

 winter side of a hill. Do you think that they would 

 thrive on such conditions of soil ? Would you advise 

 me to go on in this enterprise? Are tobacco ribs, 

 when put near the roots, a preventive against the 

 worms or borers? Would manuring and liming be 

 advantageous to their growth on this kind of soil ? 



By answering the above you will greatly oblige, 

 Yours respectfully, Henry Bixler. 



Any soil that will produce corn and potatoes 

 will produce peaches, and some of the most 

 intelligent and experienced peach-growers 

 claim that the north, or winter side of a 

 hill, Ave times out of six, is better than the 

 southern or summer side, if it is not too inuch 

 exposed to the intensely cold north winds ; in- 

 asmuch as they bloom later and are therefore 

 not so liable to injury from early spring frosts. 



If tobacco ribs were wrapped closely around 

 the bases of the trees, and a little earth heaped 

 up around the outer edges, they would keep 

 off the borers ; but stiff paper, old rags, or 

 even newspapers, would answer the same pur- 

 pose ; but, in any case, they should be applied | 



about the first of June and continued until 

 the end of September. 



If the land is new you don't want anything 

 more than the virgin soil to start a peach 

 orchard. Sandstone is generally a silicious 

 soil and might want some lime from the be- 

 ginning, but as to manuring heavily, it is not 

 necessary until the trees are in bearing condi- 

 tion ; too rich a soil for young trees makes too 

 much immature wood, which is seldom ever 

 good bearing wood. Even when you begin to 

 manure and cultivate it will not require more 

 of these elements than are necessary for the 

 production of an average corn crop. 



We would not like to specially adinse as to 

 the expediency of the enterprise, but we be- 

 lieve that if your location is near a railroad, 

 and accessible to a good market, you would 

 run no risk in planting a peach orchard cif good 

 varieties, no matter how abundant the crop 

 may generally be. Good peaches always com- 

 mand a good price, whether the crop is large 

 or small. 



We are often astonished, during the peach 

 season, to see so many poor peaches in the 

 market. A smaller crop of good varieties 

 will always pay better than a larger crop of 

 poor varieties, and the labor of cultivating 

 and handling the former will be correspond- 

 ingly less than that of the latter. 



We have preferred to answer your queries 

 through the columns of The Farmer, be- 

 cause others have asked the same questions, 

 and our mission is to do as much good as we 

 can in a general way •, but apart from this 

 your own experience, as you go forward, will 

 suggest many things which we cannot antici- 

 pate, in detail, as to local contingencies. 



THE PEACH BARK-LOUSE. 



Mr. E. B. Engle— Dear Sir : This is the 

 brood and insect which I wrote you about in 

 my letter of the 13th inst. The winged insect 

 you will find in a small tin cylinder with a mag- 

 nifying glass in one end. Look through the 

 glass and you will see the insect magni- 

 fied. As near as I could discover the brood 

 hatches in the spring of the year and becomes 

 a worm, which lives on the sap of the tree 

 until autiunu, when it is transformed into a 

 flying insect, the same as the sample I sent 

 you. The worm* emits a black dirt, which 

 falls upon and covers the fruit, and leaves it 

 as if covered with charcoal dust, and it can 

 not be rubbed off. Yours respectfully, 



Wm. Young. 



Reading, Jantiary 14th, 1878. 



The foregoing, and the following, extracted 

 from another letter on the same subject, by 

 the same writer, and about the same period, 

 together with a box containing some of the 

 insects alluded to, were sent to the meeting 

 of the Pennsylvania Fruit-Growers' Society, 

 held at Williamsport, on the IGth and 17th 

 ult., but on account of the shortness of the 

 session they were not reached, and were there- 

 fore referred to us for elucidation: 



" Five years ago I had an opportunity to 

 discover, on a few peach trees, in the central 

 part of the city of Reading, a new insect, 

 which, so far as my knowledge extends, has 

 never been known here before. The first year 

 I visited various sections of the city, to dis- 

 cover, if possible, whether it had spread any. 

 I found none elsewhere, and I gave notice to 

 the people then, that if it was not extermi- 

 nated it would become a great evil to the 

 peach-grower. This year I find all my bearing 

 trees infested with them, as well as my neigh- 

 bors', and I do believe it will become, in a 

 short time, of great magnitude, and will give 

 us no rest until it has destroyed the trees in 

 general. Its increase in one season is enor- 

 mous, as the insect which lays the eggs can 

 fly, and I am at a loss for a remedy. I sent 



*We would respectfully beg leave here to say that neither 

 the larva of the bark-louse, uor that of the winged insect 

 sent us ever occurs in the form of what is usuwlly under- 

 stood as a worm, aud their excremental emissions are always 

 in the liquid form. If any worms or maggots are found 

 among them they must be those of parasites. The " black 

 dirt " OQ the fruit or the branches is, no doubt, a species of 

 /ungua. 



you a few branches of the infested peach, 

 which are a fair sample of the condition of all 

 the branches of all the bearing trees at the 

 present time. I also sent you one of the in- 

 sects that lays the brood. Several trees have 

 been totally destroyed. Can you give me the 

 nativity of the insect, its name, and when and 

 where it was first noticed ? lias any other 

 member of the society any knowledge of it, 

 and are there any other districts of the State 

 infested by it ? Are there any possible reme- 

 dies by which it can be destroyed, and if so, 

 can they be applied without destroying the 

 bearing trees i"' Yours truly, 



Wm. Youn6. 

 We insert these letters here not for the pur- 

 pose of criticising the misapprehensions, and 

 consequent misstatements of the writer, but 

 to illustrate, from his own ex|)erience, and 

 from his own practical observation, that he 

 'has a very formidable insect enemy to his 

 peach trees to contend with ; and to elicit the 

 observations and experiences of others on the 

 same subject, if there should be any within 

 our State or elsewhere. But, first, we would 

 most respectfully beg leave to correct a great 

 error, which he seems to have fallen into, iu 

 regard to the winged insect which he alleges 

 lays the eggs. 



The delicately formed golden green insect 

 with the beautiful lace wings, belongs to the 

 order Neuroptera (nerve-winged insects) 

 and the family Hemerobud^e, and is one of 

 the most industrious and unequivocal insect 

 friends that belongs to the whole cla.ss In- 

 secta. The nimble little larva is spindle- 

 shaped — oblong, thickest in the middle, and 

 tapering towards both ends — has six feet, and 

 a formidable pair of calliper-like jaws, and 

 feeds mainly on apliids and bark-lice, before 

 the latter have assumed the scale form. After 

 the larva is mature, it spins itself up in a 

 small spherical, whitish, silken cocoon, from 

 which the perfect insect evolves in the late 

 spring ; and when the female becomes fertilized 

 slie deposits from ten to twenty eggs in a 

 cluster, each one on the end of a delicate 

 white foot-stalk, when they look like a minute 

 bulb on the end of a thin, whitish bristle ; and 

 when the young are excluded from the eggs, 

 they crawl down the foot-stalk aud scatter 

 themselves over the tree or plant, and go in j 

 search of any small living object they can find, 

 especially plant or bark-lice. The specimen 

 enclosed, still has the cocoon within its grasp, • 

 from which it emerged. This liltle insect can 

 do no harm whatever, for in the winged state 

 it partakes of no food at all — indeed, it could 

 not if it would, for its mouth organs are obso- 

 lete, or merely rudimental. It has no part 

 whatever in producing the bark-lice that in- 

 fest the branches of the peach or any other 

 tree, and its presence there is solely for the 

 purpose of feeding on them. We have watched 

 them for many an hour among colonies of 

 aphids, slaying them with the energy of a 

 regular pork-butcher. Knowing them and 

 their habits so well, we regret that their mis- 

 sion has been misapprehended, and hence, 

 altogether misrepresented. This little subject 

 seems to be Chrysopa occidata, but there are 

 some twenty or thirty described species of 

 them. 



And now a word about the "bark-lice" of 

 the peach tree. They belong to the order 

 HoMOPTERA (like-winged insects) that is, in 

 those among them that have wings at all, the 

 wings are all nearly or quite alike in size, 

 structure and form. But it is only the males 

 that have wings, and these do not survive the 

 winter. Those on the twigs of trees at this 

 season of the year, are all females, and all 

 will, next spring, deposit a number of eggs, 

 (each from 50 to 1.50 or more,) and these will 

 hatch about the 15th of June — earlier or later, 

 according to the temperature of the weather. 

 Thej' are so very small when they come from 

 the eggs that they cannot be discovered with- 

 out the aid of a glass, but small as they are, 

 they have organs of locomotion sutticient to 

 transport them all over the tree, and wherever 

 the wood is stnoothest, newest and most suc- 

 culent, there they will penetrate the bark with 



