The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. EATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., JULY, i879. 



Vol. n. No. r. 



Editorial. 



LANCASTER COUNTY TOBACCO. 



The tobacco trade of Lancaster county is 

 rapidly becomins one of the largest and most 

 important factors in the material constitution 

 of its commerce, and its financial influence 

 upon the agricultural prosperity of the county 

 is becoming very manifest. If any evidence 

 were needed in regard to the appreciation of 

 our nicotine product, and the preference ex- 

 hibited for it by extensive and experienced 

 tobacco dealers, it miglit be found in the large, 

 substantial and costly tobacco warehouses 

 which have been erected in different parts of 

 the county— and notably in Lancaster city— 

 where large invoices of tobacco are purchased, 

 stored, prepared, packed and sent off to the 

 different seaboard markets, both on the 

 Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It is true, there 

 is a bare possibility that the tobacco trade may 

 be ultimately overdone by competition and a 

 redundant production, but it is not at all pro- 

 bable. The tobacco trade is contemporary 

 with the settlement of the country, and in the 

 early history of the colonies, in many in- 

 stances it was equivalent to, and in fact per- 

 formed the functions of a currency — was re- 

 ceivable for fines, penalties and taxes. Its 

 consumption has been increasing not only in 

 America, but "all the world over," from its 

 first discovery down to the present time. We 

 are not di.scussing the usefulness or useless- 

 ness of tobacco— fts good or evil effects upon 

 the moral or physical condition of the human 

 family — we merely have reference to the facts 

 of its culture and traffic in it ; and particularly 

 to the quality of the weed raised in Lancaster 

 county, and incidentally to the permanence of 

 the tobacco trade. 



"We have just had a conversation with a 

 friend, who, 'on a recent visit to a relative in 

 York county, was assured by Mr. F. A. Uhl, 

 (nowafarmer atTell'sStation, near Hanover) 

 who had been a tobacco manufacturer for a 

 quarter of a century, that the Lancaster 

 county tobacco, in his estimation, on the 

 whole, is superior to any raised in the country. 

 Years ago it was only inferio.- in quality, and 

 could hardly find a purchaser out of the county. 

 But all this is changed now. Its cultivation 

 and curing is better understood than it was. 

 Better seeds and better qualities of tobacco 

 are planted, and the fact that quality is of a 

 higher considerati(m than qunntity. has be- 

 come more appreciated than it was in the in- 

 fancy of tobacco culture among us. Of course 

 tobacco cannot be cultivated, and properly 

 hou.sed and cured without a arood deal of care 

 and labor, but this care and labor is better un- 

 derstood, and hence more effectually exer- 

 cised than it was in times past. But above all 

 its financial bearings and the facilities it 

 affords to small operators is an important 

 item in its culture. If a poor man has a 

 small enclosure, or can lease one, he can real- 

 ize more out of it in tobacco than in any other 

 crop. 



HONEY PRODUCT. 



"Tliere are 2.000,000 bee-hives in the 

 United States. Every hive yields on an 

 average a little over twenty pounds of honey. 

 The price at which honev is sold averages 25 

 cents a pound, so that after payincr for their 

 own bo;»rd, our bees present us with a reve- 

 nue of over S8.000,000. Or reckon it another 

 way— -they make a clear gift of one pound of 

 pure honey to every man. woman and child 

 in the vast domain of the United States." 



The foregoing is "going the rounds" of 

 the press in general, and doubtless the reck- 

 oning is as correct as such calculations usually 

 are, but that has nothing to do with our 



cogilations. AVe take it for granted, and if 

 there are any who doubt it, it is for them to 

 disprove it. Statistics made from absolute 

 data, always fall below the reality, for the 

 reason that so many keep no record, others 

 are relicent, and others forgetful, careless or 

 indifferent, and hence the true data cannot 

 be obtained. Estimated statistics, however, 

 arc sometimes wide of the mark. If we have 

 only time and opportunity to examine one 

 tree in an orcliard that contains a thousand 

 trees, and we are accurate in our computation 

 that there are fifty bushels of apples on that 

 tree, we have no right from such a basis to 

 conclude that the whole orchard contains 

 50,000 bushels. Still, the honey product, 

 above quoted, is as likely to be underestimated 

 as overestimated, for the reasons already 

 stated. There is an immense number of bee- 

 keepers, on a small scale, who probably never 

 keep an account of the amount of houey their 

 bees produce, the amount consumed by their 

 owners, or the bees themselves, or what 

 amount is sold. Let any one go to market 

 and buy a pound of honey, and he will be 

 astonished at the small bulk there is in a 

 pound. Or let him attempt to purchase that 

 beautiful box of honey, and he will be amazed 

 at its weight, and what it amounts to at 25 

 cents per pound. Great is the honey product 

 of our country, and it is yearly increasing. 



THE ELM TREE BEETLE. 



How it Destroys some of our most Beautiful 



Shade Trees, and how it may be 



Exterminated. 



This pernicious foreigner is again making 

 its appearance in and about Lancaster, and is 

 the cause of more or less anxiety amongst 

 those wno have elm trees on their premises. 

 Its destructiveness depends entirely upon 

 numbers. A few, perhaps, would not ma- 

 terially injure the foliage of these beautiful 

 trees, but, unfortunately, if a combined effort 

 is not made to circumvent them, they do not 

 long remain only a "few." They possess 

 extraordinary abilities to multiply, and there 

 are at least two broods, in this latitude, dur- 

 ing the vegetating season ; therefore they are 

 apt to " multiply and replenish " ad infinitum. 

 They do not spread very rapidly, but where- 

 ever they have become localized and multi- 

 plied, they have inflicted serious damage upon 

 the elm trees, both in Europe, from whence 

 they came, and also in the United States. 

 Dr. Harris has recorded that on one occasion 

 all the elm trees in a public park in Baltimore 

 had to be removed in order to circumvent 

 these insects ; it was also the case at several 

 places in Massachusetts. They were noticed 

 in this county about three years ago in limited 

 numbers, and two years ago they were con- 

 spicuously present within the city limits of 

 Lancaster — indeed in the very heart of the 

 city— notably on a tree in front of the Episco- 

 pal Church, corner of North Duke and East 

 Orange streets, and from thence on all the 

 elm trees on the north side of Orange street, 

 at least as far as Lime street. Also in Duke 

 stret, near the English Reformed Church. 



It will be difticult to compass these insects 

 by any single remedy. Some knowledge must 

 be had of their history, habits and trans- 

 formations ; and especially should the people 

 be able to recognize the mature beetles when 

 they see them, for these are the prolific 

 parents of the larv;e, or "worms" tliat are 

 now on the trees, fully grown, or passing 

 into the pupa state. The mature beetles hi- 

 bernate during the winter season under any 

 cover that comes most convenient, and they 

 are able to endure a very low degree of cold, 

 provided there is not too much moisture pres- 

 ent. Alternate freezings and thawiugs, under 



such circumstances, would be detrimental to 

 their continued existence. 



Last February, a year ago, Mrs. P. E. Gib- 

 bons brought to the meeting of the Linnaean 

 Society a dozen or two of these beetles, part 

 o" a colony which had been hibernating be- 

 hind a fireboard in her house. The loose 

 bark on trees and timbers, chinks in old walls, 

 large flat stones, cracks or seams in fences, in 

 barns, outhouses, and sheds, etc., often fur- 

 nish convenient places for the winter hiberna- 

 tion of these beetles, as well as for the curc.u- 

 Ho, the "Squash-bug," and very frequently 

 also the " Colorado 13eetle. " It seems very 

 reosonable that if these insects are recognized 

 and destroyed during the winter or early 

 spring— almost any time before the first of 

 May— the possibilities of a large brood are 

 also diminished or destroyed. If a gravid 

 female is destroyed before oviposition, that 

 simple act may destroy from three hundred 

 to a thousand in.sects in embryo, but affer 

 that period, would only be killing a single 

 individual, which if let alone, would soon 

 have died of its own accord. 



When these beetles come from their winter 

 quarters, they have a nuptial season of a week 

 or more, according to the temperature of the 

 weather, after which the females commence 

 depositing their eggs on the foliage of the elm 

 trees, to which they are exceedingly partial. 



But, the larvfB of the Elm Beetle are now 

 on the trees and are full grown. The people 

 have not availed themselves of the preventive 

 measures suggested in the foregoing. What 

 is to be done now ? It might be easy enough 

 to say what, but it might not be so easy to do, 

 especially if there wore many infested trees, 

 and those trees very large ones. If sheets 

 were spread beneath the trees, and the limbs 

 were severely jarred, or persistently shaken, 

 many of these larvfB would fall, and could be 

 gathered up and scalded or burned, or killed 

 by any other means the operator might choose 

 to adopt. A solution of whale oil soap, car- 

 bolic soap, a decoction of tobacco, or common 

 lye thrown upon the trees by means of a gar- 

 den syringe or pump, would destroy as many 

 as we're reached by these liquids. But from 

 the observations which we have made during 

 the past two years we should depend more 

 upon destroying them when they come down 

 from the trees to inipate. This takes place 

 during the month of .July. A few will pupate 

 in the'crevices of the bai-k on the trunks and 

 larger limbs of the trees, but by far the larger 

 number descend to the base of the tree, and 

 if the trees have grass, rubbish or loose earth 

 around them, they will pupate under cover of 

 these ; but here in the city of Lancaster, 

 where the bases of the trees are surrounded 

 by pavements, they pupated above ground in 

 any little corner or crevice they could find, 

 and they could have thus been swept up by 

 quarts and destroyed, but no one seemed to 

 think it was any of his business. This should 

 suggest the contrivance of some sort of trap 

 to catch them under these circumstances. As 

 all do not generally reach the ground, by the 

 washing of the trunks with the above liquids 

 applied with a sort of mop, manipulated with 

 a stiff" hickory "scrub"— such as are used to 

 clean out gutters— those stragglers which 

 locate themselves there might be dislodged 

 and destroyed. If this course was pursued 

 towards the first brood, it might prevent a 

 second brood. It is the second brood that 

 goes into winter hibernation and perpetuates 

 the species ; and possibly some of this brood 

 remain in the ground all winter in the pupa 

 state, when they can have access to a favor- 

 able situation. 



As we intimated before, this insect was in- 

 troduced into this country about five and 

 forty years ago, and first demonstrated its 



