The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., OCTOBER, 1880. 



Vol. MU. No. 10. 



Editorial. 



OUR LATE FAIR. 

 From the quality oF llie niatiMiiil on exliibi- 

 tion it sccins very cviilont tliat Laiieastro 

 county always cnn, it' slie nnll, furnish the 

 substance to made a < rctlital)le display of her 

 produutions almost ai any time — late or early 

 — wet or dry. Jiut the exhibition lacked 

 sadly in quantity, in variety, and in the 

 almost total absence of some of the most 

 luominent and showy inoduction.s. It lacked 

 also in the patronage of the public, and hence 

 — from a reference to the proceedings of the 

 society — it will he seen that it was anything 

 but a linancial success. SUU, it was veri/ 

 good, so far as it went, and the self-denying 

 few who were instrumental in pushing it 

 through, against a strong counter current of 

 indifference and political excitement, are en- 

 titled to more tlian the mere criticisms of 

 their fellows. They made use of all the usual 

 appliances, and if pending contingencies ren- 

 dered these abortive, the fault is not theirs, 

 except so far as they may have uniBitti)iijly 

 erred in their management. Under any cir- 

 cumstances, it has come and gone, and we 

 can breath more freely again. 



^ 



UNDER TRIBUTE. 



Our sincere thanks are due to Mr. Wm. 

 Weidle, of Lancaster city, for a liberal dona- 

 tion of Sheldon, Howell, Angeau, Duche.ss, 

 Lawrence and Sickle pears, and sundry clus- 

 ters of Israella grapes of unsurpassable lieauty 

 and lusciousness. Of course, connoisseurs 

 are well acquainted with the qualities of these 

 fruits respectively, but there is a quality at- 

 taching to the Lsraella grapes which we tliink 

 deserves a special notice, and that is their 

 natural longevity. They ripen cotemporary 

 with tlie Ilartford Prolitic, (which with us 

 always ripen in the last quarter of July) and 

 yet they hang on the vines and retain all their 

 Havers unimpaired up to the first of October, 

 which is a very special merit in grapes. 

 Many varieties begin to drop off or decay 

 soon after they are ripe, l)ut this is not the 

 case with the Israella, and more than com- 

 pensates foranything they may lack in quality, 

 when compared with other varieties. Our 

 thanks are also due to Mr. Levi S. lieist for 

 liis donation of the large and beautiful collec- 

 tion of apples which he had on exhibition at 

 the late fair, but which through some unac- 

 couutaljle omission, were not entered for 

 competition. These gentlemen, including Mr. 

 Daniel Smcych, never fail, at the proper time, 

 to hold in practical remembrance the editor of 

 this journal, and which we can only recipro- 

 cate in this record of our thankfulness. 



NATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS CONVEN- 

 TION. 



The National Convention of Bee-keepers, 

 in session in Cincimiati, on Friday elected 

 the following olBcers for the ensuing year : 

 President, N. P. AlUn, of Kentucky ; Ite- 

 cording Secretary, Phich Parmly, of New 

 York ; Corresponding Secretary, 0. F. North, 

 of Cincinnati ; Treasurer, F. A. Dunham, of 

 Depere, Wisconsin. Tlie Vice Presidents re- 

 main the same, except that Mr. William.son, 

 of Lexington, was chosen for Kentucky, and 

 11. T. Root for Ohio. Lexington, Ky., was 

 chosen as the next place of meeting. 



CAROLINA CORN-WORM. 

 On the '2Gth of .June, 18S(1. I received in a 

 box, by U. S. mail, from Spear & Co., No. 10 

 Chatham street, Union, South Carolina, two 

 joints of a cornstalk infested by a peculiar 

 kind of an insect larva, with the following 

 letter : 



Union, S. C, June 2:{, 1880. 



"Dr. S. S. Ratiivox, Lancaster, Pa. — 

 Dear Sir: We send you by mail a small box 

 containing several joints of cornstalk, with 

 several moths in them. The farmers are 

 greatly troubled ; at least one-fourth of the 

 corn is damaged by this moth. Please tell us 

 what it is." 



I believe there were llure parts of joints, 

 hut only two of them contained larvic, and 

 the.se only contained three, just sufficient to 

 secure a specimen each of larx-a, pupa and 

 iniiKjo, and the larva; were already nearly 

 matured, anil altogether new to me ; there- 

 fore, I had to await their llnal development, 

 which no doubt retiuired a longer time here 

 than it would have required in South Caro- 

 lina. These larva; were from (ifteen to twenty 

 millimetres in length, and about ten in cir- 

 cumference ; color dull white, faintly tinged 

 with yellow ; head clay, or honey yellow ; six 

 short, sharp pectoral legs, but no prolegs ; 

 instead thereof eight small, dark, tubercular 

 concretions; segmental divisions very distinct- 

 ly marked, and on each ten brownish, glossy, 

 tubercular dots, each surmouuled with a 

 short, whitish .seta, or bristle, longest on the 

 last, or caudal segment. This larva, whether 

 normal or abnormal, had the most singtdar 

 mode of locomotion I have ever witnessed in 

 a worm. By the aid of its short feet and 

 tuberculated segments, it rapidly rolled itself 

 over and over latitudinally with a slight 

 screw-like motion, which propelled it for- 

 ward in an oblique line, and when at rest, it 

 was just as likely to be on its back, or one of 

 sides, as on its belly. The rapidity of this 

 motion, and the iirogress it made in the line 

 of direction, was the most marvelous. One of 

 the joints of the corustalks contained a por- 

 tion of the root, from which I am able to 

 infer that the eggs of the moth ar(; deposited 

 at the base of tiie stalk, perhaps a little below 

 the surface of the soil, where they incubate, 

 and the young larva there enters the stalk 

 and works its way upward through the inner 

 pith as far as the second or third joint, and, 

 in this case, where the burrows terminated, 

 the whole of the pith, except the librous por- 

 tion, was absorbed, and the stalk limp and 

 wilted, and doul)tless the least wind would 

 cause it to bend or break, as is done mechani- 

 cally with broom-corn. 



Another singular characteristic of this larva 

 is this : When it is mature it cuts a hole out 

 through the side of the stalk and builds a 

 loo.se, light gallery, or coccoon, out of its 

 debris, which stands out and upward at about 

 an angle of forty-five degrees. This tube, as 

 it may more appropriately be called, is about 

 the length of the larva (20 millimetres), but I 

 fail to appreliend the use of it, for the larva 

 afterwards retires within the stalk and pupates 

 in its burrow there, and remains tliere until 

 the moth is evolved, the egress of which nuist 

 •be out through this tube. The inipatiou oc- 

 cured in this case, between the 2'.ith of .June 

 and the 4th of July, in the two subjects in 

 which I permitted it to occur. 



The piipu is eighteen millimeters in length, 

 four in diameter, cylindrical in form, slightly 

 bent, and of a light-brown color, but soon 

 becomes a darker shade. The whole surface, 

 except the portion inclosing the wings, is 

 roughened, owing to fine, gritty or granu- 

 lated tuheicles on the central portion of seg- 

 ments, which are larger and sparser on the 

 anal segments. These tubercles incline back- 

 ward slightly, but the surface is rough to the 

 touch in either direction, and when disturbed 

 the pupa has i)ower, by rapid contortions, of 

 throwing itself from one position to another 

 in a forward direction. The caudal termina- 

 tion is irregular and obtuse, witliout spines, 

 other than the appreciation of the anal 



tubercles. The pupal wings extend down 

 over the sternal surface about halfway be- 

 tween the "head and tail." Under a micro- 

 scopic examination there are doubtless many 

 other distinguisljing characteristics, hut they 

 are, jierhaps, not of essential value in a i)opu- 

 lar sense. On the 12th of .July the moth 

 evolveil from the pupa. The whole body, 

 including wings, leet and antenn:e are of a 

 silvery dral> color, except a i)air of prominent 

 brownish eyes. From tlie end of tlie palpi — 

 which project prominently forward — to the 

 end of the abdomen, the moth mejusures 

 fifteen millimetres; when at rest the wings 

 are delle.xed and extend beyond the body, 

 when they are expanded they measure twenty- 

 live millimeters from ''tip to lip" of the an- 

 terior pair. The wings are i'wi'. milliineters 

 wide at the apex or outer end, and narrowly 

 fringed— longest at the end of the costal 

 margin — slightly sloping towards the posterior 

 angle. The antenn;e are lilliform, with a 

 circular curl at the ends. The veination of 

 the wings is very conspicuous ; each vein of 

 the anterior pair having a small brownish dot 

 at the end, on the under side, and these and 

 the eyes are all that differ from the general 

 coloration. On the whole, it is a very pretty, 

 bright looking moth, notwithstandinc its 

 Iilaln, unattractive garb. This insect, accord- 

 ing to Prof. Herman Strcckcr, of Reading. 

 (to whom I submitted it for examination,) 

 belongs to a group or division known among 

 entomologists under the name of Miciio- 

 Lepidopteua, and to the family Cramhid^, 

 a group but little studied yet in this countrj', 

 and has therefore few specialists, and those 

 not very accessible. 1 therefore provisionally 

 refer it to the genus Cramhus, and the species 

 rdroUuH, although so conspicuous an insect 

 can hardly he new to science. An insect that 

 destroys at least "one-fourth of our corn 

 crop," and whose damages are known to the 

 farmers, very probably came to the knowledge 

 of Smith & Abbot, and is probably recognized 

 in their great work on the Southern Leitdop- 

 TERA, but that work is not accessible to me 

 at this time. 



Even if I were able to tell precisely "what 

 it is" as to its name alone, th.at would not 

 help the farmer much in arresting its destruc- 

 tiveness. I am too far away from its locality 

 to make any observations on its habits, or cx- 

 Iieriment with artificial remedies. Maturing 

 so early in the season there is probably more 

 than one brood during the year, and there- 

 fore it may also infest other plants than corn. 

 The api)licatio!i of a repellant (as carbolic 

 acid) near each hill might prevent the females 

 from depositing their eggs there. 



The Micro^Lepidoptera are generally 

 very small species, very fragil, and also very 

 perishaljle, and for this reason perhaps few 

 study them or make a specialty of them, and 

 little is known of their larvse. About H.5 years 

 ago I made (juite a collection of them. My 

 attention was called to them by their peculiar 

 gyrating and whirling motions on the leaves 

 of the deep forest underbush, like a lot of 

 .saucy little bantums. Some of them were 

 very iiretty. The late Dr. Breckinridge 

 Clemens, of Eastoii, Pa., made them a study, 

 and named some of them for mo. But secular 

 duties interfered, and subsequently the whole 

 collection perished through depredations of 

 Anthreniof varieua, or "museum pest." 



TOBACCO PESTS— No. 3. 

 On the 12th of June last I received from 

 Mr. 1). lyippold, of Sahmga, two small green- 

 ish gr.ay Lipidftplcrnus larviD, which he stated 

 were feeding on the leaves of his young to- 

 bacco plants, and which they continued to 

 feed upon until they had consumed the young 

 living plant he sent with them. They had 



