The Lancaster Farmer. 



Prof. S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., SEPTEMBER, 1878. 



Vol. X. Mo. 9. 



"WHAT IS HONEY-DEW?" 



At the last qiiarU'ily iiiccting of tliu "Bee- 

 Keepers' Assouiatidir' of Lancaster county, 

 the above ([uestion was proiiounded autl sum- 

 marily answered, Imt that answer docs not 

 seem to covfr the whole ([uestion, for honey- 

 dew is not the result of a sin;;le cause, there 

 being S(!veral causes which produce tlie same 

 effect, as experience teaches. 



On page (iO, Vol. VIII. of The Lancas- 

 ter Fakmek (April, 187U,) is a communica- 

 tion from A. Allen Noe, to the ell'ect that 

 honey-dew falls down from the upper strata 

 of the atmosphere ; that it is an evaporation 

 of the "aroma" of the fragrant (lowers, 

 which condenses and falls in the form of dew. 

 In an editorial, commencing on page 49 of 

 the same number of The Farmer, we took 

 issue against the theory of Mr. Noe, setting 

 forth wliat we knew of its Aphidian origin, 

 in corroboration of some of the best authori- 

 ties on the subject ; but, at the same time, 

 admitting that it sometimes occurred from 

 other causes. AVe have had ocular demon- 

 strations of it that could not possibly be ac- 

 counted for purely on the insect theory, (pretty 

 large oaks and hickories, as well as laurels, 

 completely covered with it and not an aphid 

 to be seen,) and, therefore, we concluded it 

 must have been an abnormal exudation from 

 the leaves themselves, without the aid of in- 

 sects. On page 72, same volume of The 

 Farmer (May, If^TO,) is a communication 

 from W. P. Bolton, illustrating an instance 

 in which honey-dew' was so abundant on the 

 grass in the fields, (remote from trees,) that it 

 glued the leaves together in the woods, and 

 they glistened as if newly varnished, and the 

 feathers of the fowls that waded through the 

 grass looked as if they had been greased with 

 oil. Mr. B. misapprehended our argument, 

 and we replied to him in an editorial on page 

 00 of the same number. As a corroboration 

 of his statement we append the following 

 from the Home Journal, copied into the 

 American Bee Journal for August, 1878 : 



Iloney-dew is a substance^not an element, 

 but composed of elements. These elements 

 must be compounded somewhere. The com- 

 position takes place in plants ; every plant is 

 a laboratory within itself. All our sugars and 

 sweets come from plants, and are taken into 

 the plants in an elementary form through the 

 leaves. Plants, like animals, are so organized 

 as to throvi' oft' by excretion excessive matter. 

 They sometimes imbibe too much of the one 

 element, or too little of the other, and for 

 want of proportion of the elements, assimila- 

 tion is retarded, and then the plant relieves 

 itself by excretion. An undue proiwrtiou of 

 azotized and unazotized substances causes 

 our large forests of oak, hickory and many 

 other trees to excrete that sweet, gummy 

 substance known as honey-dew. It is this 

 that causes the grass of the broad Western 

 prairies to become so gummy as to adhere to 

 the feathers of the wild turkeys and other 

 birds that wade through it till they cannot 

 fly. It is this chemical derangement of plants 

 that causes honey-dew. 



Says Langlois : " I observed, during the 

 dry season in the summer of 184:5, that the 

 leaves of the linden tree became covered W'ith 

 a thick, sweet liquid iu such quantity that for 

 several hours of the day it ran off the leaves 

 like drops of rain. Many kilogranniies might 

 have been collected from a moderate-sized 

 linden tree." 



In Grisen, Mr. Trapp possesses a Cleroden- 

 drurn fragrans, growing in his house ; it 

 exudes on the surface of its leaves, in Septem- 

 ber, large colorless drops, which form regular 

 crystals of sugar candy upon drying, showing 

 the change proportional of carbon, hydrogen 

 mid oxygen as the season changes and the 



organic activity of the leaf changes. The 

 pro|)ortion is not assimilable nor nutritious 

 to the plant ; the ))lant organs in their func- 

 tions excrete it. Thus we have honey-dew, a 

 product of |>lants by chemical derangement. 

 Says Leil.iig : "In a hot summer, when the 

 dciiciency of moisture i)revents the absorption 

 of alkalies, we ol)serve the leaves of the lime 

 tree, and other trees, covered with a thick 

 liciuid, containing a large quantity of sugar ; 

 the carbon of this sugar nuist, witliout doubt, 

 be obtained from the carbonic acid of the air. 

 The generation of the sugar takes place 

 in the leaves ; and all the constituents of the 

 leaves, including the alkalies and alkaline 

 earths, must participate in effecting its forma- 

 tion. Sugar docs not exude from leaves in 

 most seasons ; and this leads us to conjecture 

 that the carbon which appeared as sugar in 

 the former case would have been applied in 

 the formation of other constituents of this 

 tree, iu the event of its having had a free and 

 unimpeded circulation."— vlf/. Chem., p. l.'io. 



"The assimilation of substances generated 

 in tlie leaves will depend on the quantity of 

 nitrogen contained in the food. When a sulli- 

 cieut quantity of nitrogen is not present to 

 aid in tlie assimilation of the substances desti- 

 tute of it, these substances will be separated 

 as excrements from barks, roots, leijves and 

 branches. The exudation of manile, gum 

 and sugar in strong and healthy trees and 

 plants, cannot be accredited to any other 

 cause." — Leibiy. 



Many other scientific and agricultural chem- 

 ists have written similarly touching this sub- 

 ject, and I think it is well substantiated that 

 honey-dew is a production of plants and is 

 exuded tiy plant-force, not insects. That 

 honey-dew falls, that it is extracted by punc- 

 tures of insects, and the many other ways, 

 equally fallacious, is argued by too many who 

 are well capacitated to know better, if they 

 were only more thoughtful and investigative 

 and less willing to be deceived. — IC, Smithes 

 Grove, Ky., July 8(/t, 1878. 



Singular enough not a single fact quoted by 

 K. from other authors in the least militates 

 against the fad that honey-dew is a'so ju'o- 

 duced by aphids. There is no necessity in 

 ignoring the fact that honey-dew is also 

 caused by aphids, in order to prove that it is 

 caused by abnormal excretion alone, for we 

 venture to assert that any one "well capaci- 

 tated to know," in conducting the investiga- 

 tion, will lind that the substance called honey- 

 dew is produced by aphids ton times, or more, 

 to one where it is produced from other cau.ses. 

 It cannot be possible that those who have 

 demonstrated through a long series of years, 

 and by numerous observations and experi- 

 ments, that aphids eject a saccharine substance 

 that coats, or partially coats the leaves of the 

 plants upon which they are located, attracting 

 swarms of honey-lapping insects — ants, (lies, 

 bees, &c. — can have been so far mistaken in 

 a matter so simple in its elucidation. We do 

 not know that any of those writers, who are 

 deemed good authority, have anywhere in- 

 sisted that honey-dew was caused by insects 

 alone, any more than the writers that K. has 

 quoted insist that it was caused by abnormal 

 excretion alone. Such a discussion of the 

 subject would be like that between the man 

 and his wife, as to whether the rope had been 

 cut by a knife or a pair of scissors. The farl 

 was that the rope was nd and was capable of 

 being cut by (nther of the instruments re- 

 spectively claimed by the contending parties. 



On pages .3(i7 and 308, September number of 

 the same jouniai, are two articles from dif- 

 ferent authors, one of which is illustrated, 

 describing species of Aphis and Corciis, both 

 of which discharge honey-dew very copiously, 

 and are carefully and constantly attended by 



ants, bees, wasps, flies, &c., which feed upon 

 this honey-dew, or collect it and store it in 

 the honey-cells in their nests or hives. It is 

 true that in one of the jiajiers "honey-dew" 

 is not specilieally mentioned, but "a sweet 

 honey-like, tluid " means about "the same 

 thing in Dutch." The other paper describes 

 a new species of a dilTerent family (C'o(;ciD-lv) 

 which infests thi^ "Tulip tree," (Liriodemlron 

 Inlipifi rn) and which hiis been named Lccanium 

 luliji'ifenv. This insect also excretes or dis- 

 charges honey-dew very copiously, which is 

 appropriated by bees, ants, &c., and yet K. 

 on page 2()9, August number of the same 

 journal, says that "honey-dew is a production 

 of plants and is exuded by jilant force — not 

 insects;" that the insect view is "fallacious, 

 and is argued by too many well capacitated to 

 know better." 



A substance equivalent to honey-dew may 

 also be lU'oduced artificially, in the ab.sence of 

 either aphids or morbid exudation. Many 

 times, when we were a boy, we gath(n-ed 

 honey-dew almost as thick as marketable 

 honey itself from the ends of white oak and 

 hick<iry wood, when it was cut green ; but it 

 exuded, perhaps, most abundantly from the 

 ends of green susar maple, after its exjiosure 

 for a time to the sun ; and we have also on 

 such occasions been assisted in its collection 

 by bees, wasps, hornets, flies and ants, when 

 it occurred within their respective season,s. 

 It is the same substance that is drawn from 

 the leaves and tender twigs by aphids, or that 

 is abnormally excreted without the presence 

 of aphids. The more succulent plants, such 

 as cabbages, green growing grains and grasses 

 do not yield honey-dew as abundantly as trees 

 and shrubbery ; although, perhaps, all vege- 

 tation yields more or less of it, particularly if 

 the sap is in excess. There is no difllculty at 

 all in the solution of this honey-dew problem, 

 if observers and practical experimenters will 

 only consent to grasp the whole subject, and 

 not look at it from one point alone. We refer 

 our readers to the pages in our eighth volume 

 for a further explanation of the subject, and 

 if they do not possess a copy it is not our fault, 

 but purely their own. 



DOES TOBACCO IIVIPOVERISH THE 

 SOIL? 



Perhaps it does to some extent, but so does 

 any strong crop that is entirely removed from 

 the land and no jiart of which is returned to 

 the soil again. In growing such a crop, of 

 course, the intelligent cultivator will replen- 

 ish his soil by supplying the exhausted ele- 

 ments in the form of some kind of manure or 

 fertilizer. But that tobacco necessarily ex- 

 hausts the soil by leaving it impoverished, 

 where a judicious system of reideiiLsliment is 

 pursued, by no means follows as an arliitrary 

 result ; and since the tobacco crop has become 

 a leading staple in the productive history of 

 our county it has been demonstrated on vari- 

 ous occasions that tobacco may be grown in 

 Lancaster county as safely as any other strong 

 growing croi> and leave the soil in as good 

 condition. Perhaps those who were most ap- 

 prehensive of imjioverishment were thinking 

 more of the exhausted and worn out lands of 

 Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, wliere, 

 for a series of years, tobacco and corn were 

 grown to the exhaustion of the land without 

 manuring, than they were upon the well- 

 tilled fields of Lancaster county, where farm- 

 ers have never thought of cropping anything 

 without manuring or fei'tilizing. 



An intelligent farnifr has just reported to 

 us his experience during the past two years 

 on this subject, and also the material results. 

 In the fall of 1870 he sowed two acres in rye, 

 seeding three bushels to the acre. In the 



