98 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July, 



aphids, but they did not seem to dimiuish the 

 quantity of tlie fruit, nor yet materially injure 

 its quality, or retard its growth. The present 

 season the ai>hids were most abundant on the 

 upper branches, the lower ones being com- 

 paratively free from them. We give these 

 items merely for their local value, and not as 

 reflecting the status of the cherry throughout 

 the entire county; but if there has been a total 

 failure anywhere, and from any cause, we 

 have not yet heard of it. 



In connection with this subject would it not 

 be well for members of societies to qualify 

 their statements more carefully in making 

 their crop reports, and for newspaper reporters 

 to do the same ? The proceedings of our 

 societies are noticed in other places remote 

 from the county, and we confess it is not 

 pleasant to see a failure or a success in Lan- 

 caster county announced abroad of whichfwe 

 are entirely ignorant at home. There are 

 millions ol: cherries almost every alternate 

 year in Lancaster county that are never con- 

 sumed at all, not even by the birds — many of 

 them dry upon the trees or become food for 

 curculios. 



If farmers were to plant cherry trees here 

 and there on their farms, or along the road- 

 sides, as shade trees for "man and beast," 

 they might hit "two birds with one stone." 

 They would furnish a luxury for the poor, a 

 feast for the birds, and an attraction to many 

 of their insect enemies which now infest their 

 other fruits, and still leave them an abundance 

 for their own use and behoof. 



WHEAT HARVEST. 



As we go to press the wheat crop is entirely 

 gathered and housed, and the oat harvest in 

 process — or soon- will be so — of completion. 

 If prices do not utterly break down in the 

 wheat market the results will be greatly to 

 the interest of the farmers, for it is not often 

 that they are blessed with such abundant 

 crops as those of 1878. The two leading 

 novelties connected with the wheat crop in 

 Lancaster county, the present season, were its 

 drill-cultivation and its "raking and binding" 

 attachment to the I'eaping process, involving 

 question of an increase and decrease, both of 

 which are intended to redound to the interest 

 of the farmer, whatever effect they may 

 chance to have upon the interests of others. 

 Of conr.se all in relation to these two features 

 in agricultural economy is not entirely satis- 

 factory to the whole farming community, but 

 they surely are experiments that liave been 

 crowned with as successful an initiation as 

 usually falls to the lot of new enterprises and 

 inventions. Making "two blades of grass to 

 grow where only one grew before, " is certainly 

 a matter of deep interest, botli to the pro- 

 ducer and the consumer, but a contrivance by 

 which one man can perform the labor of live, 

 in the same length of time, may be regarded 

 by a great many as clashing with the interests 

 of the laboring men — provided it even does 

 the work as well, about which there seems to 

 be room for various couflicting opinions. 



We have witnessed the process of ciiJtwa- 

 tion, which we have noticed in various places 

 in former numbers of The Farmer. The 

 bindiny process we have not witnessed, (arriv- 

 ing on the ground " in time to be too late,") 

 but we .saw the sheaves after they were bound. 



We confess that we were not as favorably 

 impressed with the compactness and tidiness 

 of the sheaves as we expected to Vie, althougli 

 in this age of rapid conversion and appropria- 

 tion the work may bo sufficient to bear their 

 conveyance to the stack or barn, and fi'om 

 thence through the thresher. The additional 

 power necessary to propel the binding attach- 

 ment, of course, involves the necessity of an 

 additional horse, or horses, and tlierefore the 

 question of economy is one that seems to 

 fluctuate between "mau and beast" — whether 

 it would be cheapest to hire- men or to keep 

 additional horses in a matter that is of so 

 short and special a duration as the wheat 

 harvest has gotten to be. We, however, must 

 confess our latent sympathy in progressive 

 agriculture, and hence, as an illustration of 



what the self-binder has done, we append the 

 following from the Marietta Times of the 29th 

 instant : 



Trial of a Self-Binder. 



On Wednesday last, Mr. T. Frank Evans, 

 of Litiz, this county, agent for McCormick's 

 harvestins machines, had a trial of one of 

 their Self-Binder Harvesters on the Park 

 farm of Col. James Duffy. This is probably 

 the most complete harvesting machine ever 

 invented. The Harvester is the well-knowu 

 and long-tried McCormick machine, which 

 has stood the test of years. The self-binder 

 attachment is attached to it in the place of 

 the binders' stand and platform, they being 

 left off, and a wood frame being first bolted 

 to the Harvester, upon which the automatic 

 binder is placed. The weight of the entire 

 attachment is less than the weight of the 

 binders' platform with two men, that are re- 

 quired for hand-binding on the Harvester. 

 The operai ion of it is very simple, and quickly 

 understood by any farmer. The material 

 used for making the bands is No. 20 annealed 

 wire, and is furnished to the farmer, wound 

 on spools that contain about twenty pounds 

 each. Two of these spools are required to 

 run each machine, and from two to four 

 pounds of wire — according to the heaviness of 

 the straw, and the size of bundles made — will 

 bind an acre of grain. The binding is done 

 much tighter than can possibly be done by 

 hand, and the sheaves are much evener and 

 easier to handle ; fewer of them come vm- 

 loosed, and in stacking they make a much 

 nicer stack than any hand- bound grain. These 

 bands can be removed before threshing by 

 patent shears, that are made for that purpose, 

 so that not one of them need be left in the 

 straw ; but most fiirmers cut them with a 

 sharp hatchet, and let them pass through the 

 machine. All threshers say that the wire 

 does not injure the machine, and the grain is 

 easier to handle and thresh than hand-bound 

 grain. The mode of compressing the sheaf 

 enables them to bind much tighter than can 

 any other machine, and thus the farmer uses 

 less wire ; and also leaves his grain in better 

 shape. The manner in which the binder de- 

 livers the sheaf on the ground is a strong 

 point in its favor ; each bundle pushing the 

 previous one off the table, causes it to drop 

 easily upon the ground, and thus avoids shell- 

 ing, where the grain is dead ripe ; and the 

 sheaves are left in a continuous straight Une, 

 butts forward. 



The machme cuts nice and clean, leaving 

 little or no straw behind it on the ground to 

 be raked up. It is a great labor-saving in- 

 vention, the binder doing the work of Ave 

 men. The trial on Wednesday was very suc- 

 cessful, and Mr. John Staufler, Colonel Duffy's 

 farmer, was very much pleased with its work- 

 ings. Col. Dufly has a ten-acre fteld of wheat 

 near the Cemetery, which is very much tan- 

 gled aud fallen, which he will cut with this 

 machine next week. 



A trial between this machine and the Os- 

 borne came off on the farm of Jacob Swarr, 

 near Qaarryville, on Thursday, when the 

 McCormick came off victorious. A letter 

 from Mr. Evans says that Mr. Swarr decided 

 in favor of the McCormick, and bought the 

 machine. 



THE TOBACCO HORN-WORM. 



A Virg;ini.a correspniKlent of the American Juin/irr 

 writes as follows : There is a diversity of opinion 

 with growers of tobacco concerning the tobacco lly ; 

 some contend that worms produced from the first 

 deposit of eggs made by the fly each year, about the 

 first of July, and spoken of by planters as tlie first 

 glut, when full grown, descend into the soil, and 

 change to flies in time to make the deposit of eggs 

 which produce the second glut of worms which 

 appear during the full moon in August. 



Others believe that the worms produced by the 

 deposit of eggs made in July, when fully grown, de- 

 scend into the soil and there remain until time to 

 make the first deposit of eggs the following July, 

 and so of the second glut. 



I belong to the second-class theorists, aud thought 

 that a case of such practical importance should be 

 reduced to a test. Accordingly, on the 18th day of 

 July of last year, I put into a box filled with soil one 



full grown horn- worm, 'and on the 24th inst. I put 

 into the same box three others of full size, and 

 placed the box in a sh.aded place, leaving the top 

 suflieiently open to admit the rain to keepthe soil in 

 the same condition as to moisture as other soil ; thus 

 giving the worms, as', near as ^possible, the same 

 chance they would otherwise have had to undergo 

 transformation. 



Upon examination at different times I found them 

 changing rapidly, the worms soon assuming a brown 

 color and chrysalis state ; and on the morning of the 

 21st of August following, upon examination, found 

 one full-winged fly ready for work and one in the 

 chrysalis state, which in a few days would have be- 

 come a fly, and two others which had perished in the 

 chrysalis state ; from which I infer that many of 

 them die in passing through the change. From this 

 experiment it appears that the tobacco horn-worm 

 undergoes transform.ation in about one month. Is 

 not this rapid transformation peculiar to this species 

 of fly or worm, and worthy of further investigation ? 

 Will not some entomologist enlighten us concerning 

 this matter ? 



Now for the practical bearing of the question : 

 Since having ascertained hy experiment that the 

 worms produced by the first deposit of eggs, when 

 they have attained a full size, are transformed to 

 fuU-winged flies in one month, is it not very impor- 

 tant that all of the first glut of worms be killed? 

 Because by so doing we effectually prevent the 

 second deposit of eggs, which produces the second 

 swarm of worms, which are the most destructive, as 

 they prey upon the leaves which remain upon the 

 stalk of the plant after it is topped. 



By exterminating as many of these as possible 

 from year to year, and by also killing the fly pro- 

 duced by the worms which escape our vigilance, we 

 may in time get rid of a pest which is vexatious, 

 expensive and most damaging to our tobacco crops. 



If any of our readers entertain the same 

 doubts, or are troubled about the identity of 

 the tobacco worm, (we believe the Southern 

 name of "Horn-worm" should be adopted by 

 our tobacco growers, as it is known uow that 

 different kinds of worms infest the tobacco 

 plant,) we would respectfully refer them to 

 our essay, commencing on page 37, March 

 number of The Lancaster Farmer for 

 1877. And they will also particularly bear in 

 mind that there are two distinct species, at 

 least, of these "Horn-worms." One comes 

 much earlier than the other, and this one also 

 attacks the tomato, tlie potato, the egg-plant 

 and other solanaceous vegetation. This species 

 (Sphinx caroliim) we have captured as early 

 as the middle of June in the winged state. 

 The other species (Sphinx quinqiiemaculala,) 

 confines itself almost exclusively to the to- 

 bacco plant uide.ss no tobacco is accessible, 

 and then it will also attack the potato and to- 

 mato. But in Lancaster county, at least, 

 there is only one brood during the year of 

 either of them, although the appearance often 

 is that it is otherwise. But this aiipearance 

 is owing to the fact that the adult female 

 moths do not deposit all their eggs in one day, 

 nor yet in one week, or perhaps in one month. 

 They feed and deposit their eggs in the eve- 

 uinsjor at night, and only a few here and there 

 on the plants at a time. These eggs hatch out 

 the worms at difl'erent times, and these times 

 may also differ from the different periods of de- 

 position, owing to varied surrounding circum- 

 stances or meterological contingencies, and 

 hence thei'e may appear to be a dozen or more 

 different liroods during the summer. Those 

 that feed on the honey of the "Jimson-weed" 

 can be destroyed by poisoning the honey of 

 that plant, but those that come before that 

 plant is in l)loom cannot be cajitured in that 

 way, but may be struck down with a paddle 

 or be captured with a hand-net attached to 

 the end of a i>ole. 



THE LANCASTER CHERRY. 



We had hoped to be able to have published 

 in this number of The Farmer a regular de- 

 scription of this cherry, with an illustration 

 of the same, but the time w'as too short to 

 secure a cut properly representing it. By 

 refei'ence to the proceedings of the last meet- 

 ing of the Lancaster County Agricultural and 

 Horticultural Society it will be perceived that 

 Mr. Daniel Smeych, of Lancaster city, ex- 

 hibited a cherry which he had raised from the 

 seed, and as it had grown on an unusual place 

 on his premises, without his own planting, he 

 had familiarly called it the " Bird Seedling," 



