1880.] 



Trie LANCASTER FARMER. 



115 



doomed to drag out a bachelor existence, 

 mutilated and shorn of their pristine beauty 

 without ever having kiinirn any of tlic sensa- 

 tions of sexual intercourse. 



For remedies we refer our readers to the 

 July nuinl)er of The Farmer. 



JULY RAINS. 



The rains we had in the month of July did 

 not come any too soon or continue too lonj;, 

 and have liad an invigorating iiilhunee upon 

 vegetation of all kintis that stood in need of 

 healthful luuuidity. The eflecl tliey had 

 upon tlie corn, the tobacco, garden vegeta- 

 tion and grass was magical, and aildcd 

 immensely to the prospects of the liusband- 

 men of the county and country. IL is true 

 these rains were not evenly distributed, and 

 hence some localities may liave received more 

 than tlieir share, or more than they really 

 wanted, whilst others received less or were 

 not reached at all. This is an event, how- 

 ever, that is likely to occur, to a greater or 

 lesser extent, every season in so vast a terri- 

 tory as that of our Union ; but the facilities 

 for transportation are so great that an equi- 

 librium can be asily elfected at any time with 

 little trouble and at a reasonable cost. Corn 

 and tobacco are reasonably promising, and at 

 the time we go to press much of the latter 

 crop will have been gathered and housed. 

 From indications, every day more manifest, 

 the melon crop is a "booming" one, and 

 hence tlie market is, and has been, full of 

 them. This is a crop that is increasing every 

 year, and the demand is becoming greater ; 

 and, judging from the daily supply and con- 

 sumption, there surely must be " money in 

 it." A reasonable consumption of these lus- 

 cious yourds is, no doubt, healthful, but like 

 tobacco, which largely ends in smoke, so 

 melons end mainly in fluid, and nobody gets 

 fat on them. From the aqueous quality of 

 melons they require rain at the proper time 

 for their complete development, hence the 

 July rains had a salutary efl'ect upon them. 

 The potatoes, too, it was facetiously said, 

 were heard to cry, " lie over" to their en- 

 croaching companions of the hill, and to their 

 neighbors in the next row. A complaint 

 early in the season had been heard of a case 

 or two of rot, but this could not have been to 

 any great extent, and perhaps was only local. 

 Cabbages, red beets, radishes and turnips all 

 drank in the July rains, and "waxed fat," 

 or at least " as fat as may be," albeit the lat- 

 ter two proverbially produce " no blood." 

 The July rains made the trees greener and 

 cleaner, the flower gardens and lawns more 

 brilliant and luxurious, the air purer, the 

 streets, sewers, and roadside gutters reno- 

 vated, and divested of their unwholesome 

 accumulations; and if we hear of "yellow- 

 jack," cholera and ague we may infer it 

 comes from places where the people have not 

 had the beueflt of drenching July rains and 

 purifying northwest winds. 



Of course, these rains were sometimes ac- 

 companied by tornadoes, floods and other de- 

 structive meteorologic-phenomena, but these 

 may only bo the eti'ects of the unbalanced 

 condition of the natural world, and always 

 will be until the millennium of the moral and 

 physical universe. July is the midsummer 

 month, and often gives tone to the growth 

 that follows it. If the ground is well satu- 

 rated in July there is more hope in the ripen- 

 ing process of August and September than 

 there would be if we only had hot, dry and 

 enervating weather in July. 



THE "GOLDSMITH." 



About sixty years ago, when we were a 

 "wee bit bairn," we were wont to amuse 

 ourself by tying a long thread to one of the 

 hind legs of a green-aud-bronzed beetle (or 

 "bug" as it was usually called) just to hear 

 him "buz" and "fly him," as urchins now do 

 their gum-elastic balloons. This bug was 

 then locally known among boys as the " Gold- 

 smith," and the boy in the village and rural 

 district, at least, who did not know or had 

 not "flew'd" a Goldsmith, would have been 



considered very verdant indeed. It, perhaps, 

 may have been dill'ereiit in large towns and 

 cities, although we know them to have been 

 connnou in some towns of 30,000 or 40,000 

 inhabitants ; nevertheless, we often met per- 

 sons forty or tifty years of age who have never 

 seen the insect, or who have seen it for too 

 lirst time. Perhaps not a single year has 

 passed since then that we have not seen more 

 or less ot them, no matter where we may 

 have been. We by no means recomm nd the 

 flijimj of Goldsuiitiis to boys as a source of 

 aiinisement, and under the admonitions of 

 our .Sunday-school teacher, we eschewed it 

 long before we advanced beyond the bounds of 

 boyhood, flow the Goldsmith came, or where 

 it linallywent to, were matters we then knew 

 nothing of nor did we trouble ourself much 

 about knowing. Neither did we know that 

 it was noxious in any tbrm ; we generally 

 found it most abundant about potato and 

 watermelon "patches," and not excessively 

 abundant anywhere. Occasionally one would 

 be detected on overly ripe or decaying peaches 

 or plums, but nothing amounting to a com- 

 plaint was made about them. When, twenty 

 years later, we commenced the collection of 

 ColcpoUrous insects (Beetles) the Goldsmith 

 was conspicuously among our Ih'st subjects; 

 and then, too, we learned that ita proper 

 scientific name was Gynmetis nitida, so named 

 by Jjinnteus, and that it belonged tothc family 

 Cetoniid.e, section Lamellicornia. (The 

 original Linntean name, however, was Sa(ra- 

 b(ms nitidus ; it was Mac Leay that erected 

 the genus Gijmnetis, in which it was subse- 

 quently placed.) iVoio, however, it is referred 

 to Dr. Burnieister's genus Allurhina, and the 

 family name is suppressed, leaving it in the 

 family ScarabvEId.e, as recorded in Crotch's 

 Check-List, according to which we have 

 neither a true CetonicK nor a Scarabceus in 

 North America. Those insects included in 

 the genus Ciloniaof our earlier entomologists, 

 are now merged in Burmeister's genus Euri/- 

 omia. True, it was utterly impossible to retain 

 all the Lamellicornia in the genus Scarabceus 

 that Linnieus included in it, and disintegra- 

 tion, therefore, became a necessity, but this 

 had become so excessive that suppression and 

 consolidation became a greater necessity ; but 

 the inconvenience all this is to those whose 

 time, means and opporl unities are limited, 

 and who are still stimulated by desire, is 

 greater than the unitiated can imagine. 



The AUorliinians (Goldsmiths) and the 

 Euryoniians (we absolutely know no common 

 name for these) have, however, been cutting 

 something of a figure in Lancaster county for 

 the past two years, and we have thought it 

 aljout time that they and their actions should 

 be placed on record. Last summer Mr. A. S. 

 Keller, of Manheim township, on several 

 occasions brought us specimens of his tiiiest 

 and ripest Susquehanna peaches, which had 

 specimens of Eiiryomia fu'gida and melan- 

 c/ioZica,perfectly buried in their luscious pulps, 

 and so perfectly intent upon their luxurious 

 repast were these Insects that they did not 

 seem conscious of their removal from the 

 trees and their transit of two miles to the 

 town. From one to four or half a dozen of 

 the smaller species were found in a single 

 peach. What could we do but recommend 

 hand-picking 'i But then, as he facetiously al- 

 leged, it would be something like knocking 

 the knots out of a knotty board, the peaches 

 would be worth less with the "bugs" out than 

 with them in. Asa preventive we advised 

 him to detroy all the white, crescent-shaped 

 "grubs" lie found in the ground, decayed 

 wood, or elsewhere. We have iound Peliddola 

 (six spotted grape-beetle) and Osmoderma in 

 much decayed wood, lying on the ground, 

 and probably thees may be found under simi- 

 lar circumstances. 



On the 30th and 31st of July, Messrs Daniel 

 Smeych and William Tliackara both brought 

 us peaches, in a similar manner infested by 

 the "Goldsmith," (AUorhina nitida.) In both 

 ca.ses the peaches were partially, or almost 

 totall}-, decayed. One peach had seven of 

 these insects upon it — two of them buried in 



its pulp, and the other five on its surface, 

 whicli had .several indentations, where they 

 had been feeding. These insects can enter a 

 ripe peach without using their jaws at all ; 

 they are perfect rooters ; and in i)roportion 

 to their size have as great rooting powers as 

 the wild boars of the "Black Forest." Their 

 rooting and pu.shing power can be easily 

 test<-d iiy grasping one of them in the hand, 

 and their attempts to push their way out be- 

 tween the fingers will be very convincing. 

 We are not acquainted with the habits of the 

 larva, except theoretically, but we think it 

 will be found similar to that of Colalpa, a 

 white grub feeding on the roots of vegetation 

 under ground and recpiiring three years to 

 ellect ail its transformations. There is much 

 in economic entomology that the farmer, the 

 gardener and the fruit-grower must learn and 

 a|)ply asthecontingenciesaffecting his occupa- 

 tion may occur. Ho ought to inform himself 

 on the subject of insect transformations and 

 the forms insects assume in the various 

 stages of development. A man, for instance, 

 may entertain sentiments towards a beautiful 

 moth or butterfly bordering on the romantic, 

 and yet in the larva state that beautiful insect 

 may be a hideous, devouring worm, from 

 which he would turn with horror or disgust. 

 Verily, husbandmen ought to knoic. 



^ 



THE SUGAR-BEET QUESTION AGAIN. 



We have, as we tried to do, considered the 

 enterprise of making sugar from beets in this 

 country with a suflicient profit to encourge 

 the business fairly and justly; and we have 

 frequently averred that thus far we are not 

 satisfied W'ith the result. We have been ask- 

 ing again this season for clear, satisfactory 

 statements of the enterprise so far as it pro- 

 gressed in the several places where it is being 

 tried, but we have received none. The com- 

 pany in Maine, to which we have referred on 

 several occasions, seems to have been tlie 

 most firmly established, having State assist- 

 ance — and from the secretary of which a com- 

 munication appeared in the Telegraph some 

 time ago, to correct some of our statements 

 and show the progress made and the encourag- 

 ing prospects ahead— does not present, if we 

 are to believe some later information received, 

 satisfactory encouragement as to the future. 



The principal cause is what we adhered to 

 in the beginning, that the cultivation of beets 

 by the general farmer, at the price offered, 

 would not be inducement enough to extend 

 their growing so as to furnish any amount 

 that might bt- demanded for the manufac- 

 turers. A good drawback would be the 

 weight of the roots and the cost of transpor- 

 tation. We now hear that the Maine farmers 

 this year declined to renew their contracts at 

 last year's rate, on the ground that there was 

 not suflicient profit in it ; and the appeal of 

 the company to the farmers of other States 

 has met with but little success. 



AVe repeat our regret that this should be 

 the result, and still hope that there will be 

 some clear way out of the difliculty. We set 

 down in the very beginning that, in view of 

 the cost of raising and supplying the beet, 

 from its bulky nature, and especially of the 

 high cost of labor here over what it is in 

 France, Germany, &c., where beet-sugar- 

 m.aking is a success, we would have an obsta- 

 cle of the most serious character, and which 

 thus far had failed of being removed. — Qer- 

 mantown Telegraph. 



It is jierhaps well that the above, from the 

 Germantown Telegraph should have a simul- 

 taneous showing with the many articles now 

 publishing in relation to subjects of "Beet- 

 culture" ahd "Beet-sugar." If it really is a 

 successful and iirofitable industry it will be- 

 come abundantly manifest in spite of all un- 

 favorable commenls, no matter from what 

 quarter they may come. Farmers, generally, 

 soon find out what crops pay them best, 

 within the limitations of their present ex- 

 periences, although it is possible they may 

 not know just what might be made more 

 profitable in the end, under more intelligent 

 and advanced culture. There are two facts, 



