108 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July 



The young are short and plump, of a pale ash color, 

 and emit the same disasjreeable odor as that which 

 rharacterizes the parent. During their gro*th they 

 shed their skins several times, gradually developing 

 wings and retaining their activity throughout until 

 they attain to the perfect winged state. At first 

 they live together in little swarms on the underside 

 of the leaves, which, in consequence of the numerous 

 punctures of the insects, and the quantity of sap im- 

 bibed by them, soon wither and appear as if scorched 

 by fire. When the leaves have been exhausted in 

 this way, they are deserted for fresh ones, and thus 

 the work of destruction goes rapidly on. 



The eggs are not all laid at one time, but like the 

 Colorado potato beetle, the eggs and young may be 

 found in their various stages of development 

 throughout the summer. 



The perfect bug measures six-tenthe of an inch in 

 length, is of a blackish color above, and a dirty 

 ochre-yellow beneath, while the sharp lateral edges 

 of the abdomen which project beyond the closed 

 wing cover is black, the wings transparent, but 

 dusky at their tips. 



To prevent the ravages of these insects they 

 should be sought for early in the season and de- 

 stroyed before they have an opportunity of laying 

 their eggs. To this end they may be looked for 

 about the last of June or beginning of July, when 

 the dusky creatures may be found under the leaves 

 on the ground, or on the stems of the vines close to 

 the ground. If eggs have been laid they should be 

 sought out and crushed. A short time spent ia this 

 way early in the season will save much disappoint- 



after 



ard. 



White Thrips in Graperies. 



Having seen several articles in the papers com- 

 plaining of white thrips in graperies, I thought I 

 would give a little of my experience with this pest. 

 I say ppst, because' there is none greater, at least 

 none has given me so much trouble. Three years 

 ago I noticed there were a good many thrips in the 

 old grapery I have charge of, but paid little atten- 

 to them, having more work on my hands at the time 

 than one man ought to do, and as they seemed to do 

 little harm I thought best to let them alone that 

 year, and give the vines a coat of paint in the fall. 

 But the next year they were thicker than ever ; the 

 remedy had done no good. I did dot think of 

 tobacco smoke until the season was pretty well ad- 

 vanced, and the consequence was the fruit was 

 literally spoiled by ih.Mr excrescence falling from the 

 leaves. The fruit ripened well (at which I was 

 somewhali surprised), but it was not fit to eat until 

 it was washed. I tried the tobacco smoke as soon 

 as I thought of it, but it did no good. You might as 

 well try to smoke out a lot of rummies from a 

 corner groggery. They had got too long headel to 

 be fooled by tobacco smoke that year ; it seemed to 

 agree with them. Last year I thought I would be 

 even with them, so, as soon as the buds began to 

 swell, I gave the grapery a good dose of tobacco 

 smoke, and continued once a week through the 

 season with good results, having never seen a thrip. 

 Now, I think this goes to show very plainly that if 

 the grapery is treated as above the thrips are killed 

 as soon as the eggs are hatched, and if it is done 

 when they are young and tender there will be no 

 further trouble. I think it would be best to use the 

 remedy in time rather than run the risk of the thrips 

 getting the start, because if this is not done, there 

 will be no use to try and smoke them out after they 

 once get full grown.— G. Hunter, Jr. Berks Co., 



Capturing Curculio. 

 Mr. Benjamin F. May made a raid upon the cur- 

 culio that infested a peach tree in his son's garden, 

 recently, and captured a large number of them. He 

 arose in the early dawning of the day, and spread- 

 ing a sheet under the tree and providing himself 

 with a piece of board and an axe, proceeded to jar the 

 tree by placing the board against it and striking it re- 

 peatedly with the axe; this caused many of the 

 peaches that the curculio had wounded to fall upon 

 the sheet, and the ill-conditioned "varmints" being, 

 as most insects are at that time in the morning, 

 in a semi-torpid state, fell wllh the fruit and 

 were captured as stated. These "varmints" are 

 injuring the young peaches badly in the upper 

 part of the peninsula, and have destroyed most of 

 the fruit that escaped the other disasters.— Cecii 

 Con7ity Whig. 



Value of Earth- Worms. 



The common earth-worm,though apt to be despised 

 and trodden on, is a really useful creature in its way. 

 Mr. Knapp describes it as the natural manurer of the 

 soil, consuming on the surface the softer part of de- 

 cayed vegetable matters, and conveying downward 

 the more woody fibres, which there molder and fer- 

 tilize. They perforate the earth in all directions, 

 thus rendering it permeable by air and water— both 

 indispensable to vegetable life. According to Mr. 

 Darwin's mode of expression, they give a kind of 

 under tillage to the land, performing the same below 

 ground that the spade does above for the garden, 



and the plow for arable soil. It is, in consequence, 

 chiefly of the natural, operations of worms that 

 fields which have been overspread with lime, burnt 

 marl, or cinders, become in process of time covered 

 by a finely-divided soil, fitted for the support of vege- 

 tation, this result, though usually attributed by 

 farmeis to the "working down" of these materials, 

 is really due to the action of earth-worms, as may 

 be seen in the innumerable casts of which the initial 

 soil consists, These are obviously produced by the 

 digestive proceedings of the worm, which take into 

 their intestinal canal a large quantity of the soil in 

 which they feed and burrow, and then reject it in 

 form of the so-called casts. "In this manner," says 

 Mr. Darwin, "a field, manured with marl, has been 

 covered, in the course of eighty years, with a bed of 

 earth averaging thirteen inches in thickness." 



Curious Facts About Insects. 



Nature prints a letter certifying that wasps and 

 bees, and by inference other insects of the same class, 

 when chloroformed and at the point of death pro- 

 trude their stings, and, bending the body until the 

 tail approaches the mouth, seemingly absorb a drop 

 of clear fiuid that exudes from the point of the sting, 

 and at once become motionless and apparently dead! 

 They may, howevor, subsequently recover, so that 

 the act cannot be' regarded as suicidal. The infe- 

 rence is that the poison is a narcotic of which the 

 insect partakes when an extremity arrives from 

 which he thinks there is no escape. If this be so It 

 is singular that these well-armed and pain-giving 

 creatures should be provided with a recourse that 

 may secure a blissful unconsciousness of pain in any 

 crisis of danger, and yet does not prove fatal should 

 the danger pass. 



Borer's Eggs 

 Are laid on the bark near the roots of peach trees in 

 early summer, when they soon hatch, and the worms 

 find their way into the bark. At this time, say in 

 June, July or August, they are easily found, and as 

 easily removed. Coal ashes, or anything else 

 thrown around the trunk that will tend to protect it 

 from the borers, may do some good, but it is much 

 easier to destroy the insects when first hatched than 

 to build mounds for keeping them away. 



Agriculture. 



Lancaster Farming in Virginia. 



Samuel Brookman, formerly of Lancaster county, 

 now of Manchester, Chesterfield county, Virgiuia, 

 writes : 



"Isold my little home in Lancaster county, Pa., 

 for which I was more than one-half in debt. I de- 

 sired to have a home of my own for myself and 

 family— which, by the way, is quite a large one, ten 

 in number— and I knew very well it was useless to 

 try and get a free home in Lancaster county with my 

 means. I came to Virginia with my family, without 

 ever having seen this part of the state. I bought a 

 small farm of forty acres, four miles from Man- 

 chester, settled on it on the 26th day of April, late 

 for spring crops. Now I am harvesting as large ears 

 of corn as we did in Pequea Valley, Lancaster 

 county. Nearly everything we planted has yielded 



$1,000 would not buy it. We all like the country , 

 have good neighbors, good water, fine climate and 

 are all enjoying good health. I have really never 

 met with kinder people than the Virginians. We, 

 as Tanks, and they, ss Jonnys, often talk over old 

 war times, and neither ever wishing to see another 

 war. I would say again to all who are seeking 

 cheap homes, come ; you will be welcomed by the 

 Virginians and the many Northerners already 

 settled here. With a little money, patience and 

 industry, you can in a few years have a home here 

 that I feel confident will be worth double the money 

 it cost you. What this country needs the most is 

 men of enterprise, men of muscle and good farmers, 

 that will clean up their waste lands, build fences, 

 grub out every bush, and in a short time our country 

 will be second to none. The most of the land lies 

 beautifully and is very easily improved. If any of 

 my friends North wish any further information from 

 me, write, and I will gladly answer." 



Varieties of Wheat. 



Joseph Galbraith, White House, Pa., an extensive 

 farmer in that rich wheat-growing valley of the 

 Cumberland, experimented last year with the fol- 

 lowi!:g varieties : 



Canada Club, a white wheat, smooth ; Bohemian 

 red wheat, smooth ; Shoemaker red wheat, smooth ; 

 Boyton white wheat, smooth ; Arnold's victor white 

 wheat, smooth ; Russian spring wheat, smooth ; 

 Clawson white wheat, smooth ; Zeller Valley wheat, 

 smooth ; Uiehl white wheat, smooth ; Fultz red 

 wheat, smooth ; Gold Dust wheat, white, smooth ; 

 Arnold's Gold Medal white wheat, smooth ; Lan- 

 caster red wheat, bearded; Kodger's amber white 



wheat, bearded; Big Seed wheat, red, bearded; 

 Russian while wheat, bearded ; Sanford white 

 wheat, bearded ; Early Ripe white wheat, beard- 

 ed ; Egyptian Seven-headed red wheat, bearded ; 

 Mediterranean spring, red wheat, bearded; Oregon 

 White rye. A few weeks ago we received 

 from Mr. Galbraith samples of Washington Glass 

 wheat, white, smooth, and Coffee wheat, white, 

 bearded— making in all twenty-one kinds of winter 

 wheat, one of spring wheat, and one of rye. Mr. 

 Galbraith experimented with all these varieties last 

 season, and says in a letter accompanying the 

 samples, "I cannot give you the aggregate amount 

 raised per acre, as the samples were too small ; have 

 the majority of them under cultivation this season 

 on a larger scale, and think I will be able to tell 

 more about them the coming season. Should they 

 yield as they did last season I can report some heavy 

 yields." We hope Mr. Galbraith will favor us with 

 a full report of his experiments this season.- Pt-oc- 

 tical Farmer. 



Fultz Wheat. 



Messrs. Best &, Sparks have mills both at Litch- 

 field and Alton, III., the latter an extensive concern 

 and the former a smaller one, but making and 

 shipping 140 barrels daily. Inquiring the name of 

 the wheat most grown and prized by millers and 

 farmers both, in that section, the unexpected reply 

 was the Fultz. But the Fultz had a bad reputation 

 in some sections. Did not the Millers' Convention 

 at Indianapolis discriminate against it? To be sure, 

 but that action was perhaps the work of patent 

 process men, which we do not use. We find the 

 Fultz, under the old processes, will make a barrel 

 of first-class, though not the highest priced flour, to 

 every four bushels and two-thirds, or 2.'»0 pounds. 

 The flour we sell in large, round lots delivered on 

 track, at ?4.25 to ?4.34, and it is quoted in New York 

 and Boston at §.5.75 to $8. In common with other 

 millers, we have reduced the speed of our burrs very 

 much — to 1.50 revolutions a minute. We use one 

 cast iron crusher to four buri'S, and have all the 

 modern appliances of the patent process but do not 

 use them. In this section there are nine bushels of 

 Fultz grown to one of any other kind. We have the 

 Blue Stem, the Lima, the Golddust and others ; and 

 have never seen or grown the Claw.son. We want 

 hard red wheats, because they make not only the 

 strongest but the whitest flour. We can tell at a 

 trlance the wheat produced on the prairie. The 

 timber-grown wheat is plumper, harder, heavier, 

 has thinnei pellicles, and makes the better and whiter 

 flour. — Country Gentleman. 



Sowing Wheat. 

 I wish to ask, through the columns of your valu- 

 able paper, which is the best method of sowing 

 wheat — broad-casting or drilling in narrow rows? 

 Will the same amount of seed produce as much in 

 narrow furrows as it would if it was spread over 

 ground and covered evenly? H. s. [It is nearly the 

 universal result that drilling wheat affords heavier 

 crops than sowing broadcast. The chief reason is 

 that it may be drilled at a uniform depth, and every 

 grain will have a good and equal chance. When 

 sowed broadcast and harrowed in, the seed is cov- 

 ered at all depths from a quarter of an inch to three 

 or four inches, and the growth is not uniform. In a 

 few instances, drilling has not done so well as broad- 

 casting, but in these the depth of the tubes was not 

 proi)eriy adjusted, and the seed was burled too deep. 

 When wheat-drills were first introduced, so uniform 

 was the benefit from their use that manufacturers 

 offered to perform all the labor of sowing for the in- 

 crease in product. The practice has now become so 

 universal, that in ridingovertwenty miles in a wagon 

 through a wheat region of Western New York, we 

 were unable to find a single wheat field that was not 

 drilled.] — Country Gentleman. 



Soot as a. Manure. 

 To strong-growing greenhouse plants, such as 

 pelargoniums, fuchsias, roses, carnations, chrysan- 

 themums, azaleas solanums, and many others, soot 

 is a valuable and easy obtained stimulant. A hand- 

 ful of it tied in a bag and stirred in a three-gallon 

 can of water has a marvelous effect on all the plants 

 just named, and on many others besides. It induces 

 vigorous growth, and adds freshness and substance 

 to both leaf and flower. It is better to use it in small 

 quantities and often rather than charge the compost 

 with more carbon than the plants can readily assimi- 

 late. For the most robust growers, especially if 

 if grown in small pots, mixture with fresh manure 

 from the cowshed is desirable, but this should be al- 

 lowed to settle before using, otherwise the grassy 

 particles will remain on the surface of the pots, and 

 while giving them an unsightly appearance, exclude 

 that free aeration which all healthy roots require. — 

 Montreal Gazette. 



Charcoal on Land. 



The absorptive power of charcoal is well known in 



the arts. Its capacity in this direction is remarkable. 



Accurate experiment has proved that in twenty-four 



hours It would absorb ninety times its own volume 



