1881. 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



21 



our mind, "every one" has not heeded. Now 

 is the time for the citizens of Lancaster coun- 

 ty at least, to carrv the sugije.stious of tlie 

 Clarion iiilo iJiMcfh-al effect, ami \vc feel con- 

 fldenl tliat they ini},'ht "p, fart her ai.d fare 

 worse." Till' F'lrnnrls tlic siiccial incdiiiin 

 through which tlie tilkrs uf the soil can make 

 a permanent declaration of how tliey till it, 

 and what It produces. We need a corps of 

 local contribuli)r.<! as much as we do a list of 

 subscribcj-s, and will clucfully assist the most 

 illiterate to place Ihenisdves'on record in an 

 intclli.uent manner. .Y""- is the time— now is 

 the jieriod of literary rcLjeneration, 



THE FREEZING OF INSECTS. 



AVe could not iwssibly attend the February 

 mectinfi of the Agricultural and Hmticnltn- 

 ral society, and had \vc b.cn there wc pi-uba- 

 bly could' not have heard what was said on 

 this subject. The reports of the proceedinf.'s 

 hy the tlnce daily papers do not seem to con- 

 vey e.xactly wliat'Dr. Greene advanced, but all 

 j^cm to afiree that he admoni.shed those inxs- 

 ent that they need not entertain any appre- 

 hension in regard to insects the coniini,' sea- 

 son, -'.solely from the fad '' that tlirou-h the 

 long and intense cold of the present winter, 

 eggs, larva-, pupte, and mature insects would 

 largely be frozen. This does not follow hy 

 any means, lender favorable circumstances 

 (unfavorable to the insects) this may follow to 

 some extent, but it caunot be regarded as a 

 matter of course. 'It is very hard to freeze 

 the eggs of insects, especially in a dry and 

 continuously cold winter. The eggs of Aphids 

 Cocci, and "Tent" caterpillars, will bear a 

 very low degree of cold without injury, 

 and this is also the case with many of the 

 pupiE, and even some of the larvoc. As to 

 the developed insects themselves, many of 

 the hibernating species arc underground, and 

 the ground too deei)ly covered witli snow to 

 be much allected by freezing. A few years 

 ago, when Mr. Lutz reported the ground 

 frozen three feet in depth, in Lancaster ceme- 

 try, " Colorada potato beetles " talien out of 

 solid blocks of earth, revived in iwo hours 

 after they had been removed to a warm room. 

 The same winter we had our eye daily on a 

 chrysalis of the " white cabhage butterfly " 

 from the month of November until the follow- 

 ing April, when one warm day the fly evolved 

 and fled. We think it was that same winter, 

 that one of those butterflies ftew into the In- 

 telligencer office on the 2'2d day of February, 

 which was given us hy Lieutenant Johnston. 

 The day was not very cold, but the ground 

 was still covered with snow. When a silk- 

 worm breeder receives eggs before he has any 

 food for -them he puts them in an ice-hou.se 

 to retard incubation. The Japanese send 

 silk-worm eggs to San Francisco, from 

 • whence they are shipped across the continent 

 to New York, and from thence to different 

 ports in Europe. These are preserved from 

 incubation by placing them in refrigi-rators, 

 or packing them in ice. ■> 



We have frequently seen species of Pfr- 

 K*B {shad Hies) coming up through fissures in 

 decomposing ice along the shore of the Sus- 

 quehanna, in February and March. We have 

 also found insect larvic frozen so stifl' that 

 Ihey coidd be broken like icicles, and .yet ou 

 the removal of those intact to a warm niedi- 

 um, they have revived and become active. On 

 one occasion we cut tlie caterpiller of Arclia 

 Isabella out of a solid block of ice, in a rain 

 stand, and within three hours afterwards we 

 found it creeping over the carpet in a warm 

 room almost as briskly as in summer. Diu-- 

 iug the cold winter alluded to above, Mr. 

 Hensel, of East Orange street, cut potato 

 beetles out of the frozen earth, but the bee- 

 tles did not seem to l>e trozen— they mashed 

 and made a yellowish streak, as they do on 

 being crushe<l in summer time. And yet, 

 there are meteorological conditions that are 

 detrimental to the life and health of insects, 

 namely, watery saturations and extremes of 

 alternate freezings and thawings. Almost all 

 the architectural struttures of "insects are im- 

 pervious to water. The object seems to be to 



keep out moisture and not the cold. A gravid 

 female insect appears to have as many lives 

 as a cat. After all her eggs are deposited she 

 loses her tenacity ; the case is similar with a 

 •'bachelor " male. Afer his fertilizing otHco 

 is performed he loses his vitality and passes 

 away. When weadviseafarmertoturn up the 

 soil with a plow and expose the larvte and 

 cln-ysalids in it, it is more to subject them to 

 destruction by birds, skunks, etc., and to 

 freezings, thawings and watery saturations, 

 than to cold. 



All this, however, does not militate against 

 the tact that insects at a certain low tem- 

 perature may freeze ; especially when other 

 conditions render the:p more suscei)til)le to 

 the effects of cold ; but we do not think 

 that it makes any dilli-rence with those below 

 th(> "snow liiu" Ihe present winter, how cold- 

 it is above that lirie;:nid to illustrate how 

 invulnerable some aliove that line are, we 

 have only to mention that on ^londay, the 

 7th inst., a young man brought to us a lively 

 chrysalis of Allacus rTcroyJa— "for name"- 

 whicli he had very injudiciously taken out of 

 its coooon. This is the large "American silk- 

 worm," or "Cecropia moth," and we think if 

 any insect would be likely to freeze this one 

 would, for it always spins its cocoon and 

 fi\stens it in a low branch, a weed, a. shrub 

 or some such place. -Its cocoon is impervious 

 to water, and that is pretty much all it pro- 

 vides against. Th. s secured, it is very doubt- 

 ful if ever one was killed by c)Id. Nor will 

 water always effect the destruction of insects, 

 unless they are immersed in it for a long 

 period or until decomposition takes place. 

 It is certahily known that "house Hies" 

 caught in a "water trap" have revived after 

 exposure to the sun's rays in less than an 

 hour. Rev. Mr. Kirby, one of- England's 

 most distinguished entomologists, had his at- 

 tention first called to the study of insects 

 from a most striking case of their tenacity, 

 which came under his observation. lie im- 

 mersed a small yellow and black-spotted 

 "Lady bird" {Cocinella iO-punctata) in spirits, 

 and in placing it in the sun some hours after- 

 wards, it revived and flew away. We have 

 often been astonished, when we have killed 

 and impaled insects, to find them "alive and 

 kicking" two or three days thereafter. Al- 

 though a certain degree of heat will revive 

 insects that are thought to be dead, yet in- 

 tense heat is a surer mode of destruction 

 than intense cold. We wish we could assure 

 farmers and others of a millennial absence of 

 noxious insei ts through the intervention of 

 cold winters, but we cannot. They are here, 

 and have been, here since our earliest recollec- 

 tion, and perhaps always will be here as long 

 as the earth produces food for them to feed 

 upon; and the more the untamed earth is 

 cultivated and its products improved in quan- 

 tity and quality, the more inviting and facili- 

 tating will it he to the pre.sence and increase 

 of insects. No farmer cures his meat, or has 

 his meals cooked, without providing salt. 

 This is an all-pervading and ever accompany- 

 ing essential. Let him regard insects as 

 something that he shall have "always with 

 him," as a matter of course, and make pro- 

 vision by prevention, circumvention, or ex- 

 termination, as conditions upon which he 

 can only be enabled to "reap what he sows." 



As to Prof. Riley's predictions in reference 

 to tlie appearance of the|seventcen-year locust 

 in Lancaster county in 1881, to which Dr. 

 Greene alluded, we think the professor only 

 refers to it approximately, and not as a finali- 

 ty. He doubtless bases his theory on certain 

 data which ought to produce certain results, 

 if those data have been correctly noted or re- 

 ported. Prof. R. has done more to reduce to 

 systematic order the chaos that has existed 

 in regard to the various broods of tliese insects 

 for the last humlred years, than perhaps any 

 man living. We do not expect such an ad- 

 vent of these insects this year in Lancaster 

 county, as those we witnessed in 18.'54, 18.51 

 and 1868, although small and isolated broods 

 may appear in certain localities, both in York 

 and Lancaster counties, and to which we 



have more fully alluded elsewhere. It does 

 not require much prophetic power to forecast 

 the damage done to vegetation liy the seven- 

 teen-year locust. BeyoiKl a little pruning, in 

 some cases absolutely bemlieial to some tree.s, 

 they do very little "dania-e, exeeiit to very 

 young trees, or dwarfs and shrubbery ; but 

 their visits are so "few and far between" 

 that a single year may set matters right 

 again. Had they never been wrongly called 

 " locusts," perhaps, no destructive character- 

 istics would hav(! attached to them ; but 

 that name suggests the locusts of Asia and 

 Africa, &c. 



PENNSYLVANIA AGRICULTURAL SO- 

 CIETY. 



The annual meeting of the Pennsylvania 

 Agricultural Society was held at the rooms 

 of the society in llarrisburg, Wednesday, 

 January 2(Jth, 1881. The following officers 

 for the ensuing' year were elected : 



Pre>ident--\VilliamS. Bissell. 



Vice I'rcsidents-D. L. Twaddcl), George 

 Blight, William ilassey, Thomas T. Tasker, 

 Charles L. Shariiless, David H. Branson, 

 William II. Holstein, Tobias Barto, S. S. 

 Spencer, Daniel II. Neman, D. 11. Waller, 

 Ira Tripii, .1. S. Keller, James Young, Joseph 

 Piolett, John A. Lemon, .lohn S. Miller, 

 Daniel O. Gehr, L. A. Mackey, George Rhey; 

 .lohn Murdoch, Jr., W. W. Speer, John Mc- 

 Dowell, Moses Chess, J. D. Kirkpatrick, 

 James Miles. 



Additional Members Executive Commit- 

 tee—A. Wilhelm, Abiier Rutherford, William 

 Taylor, John H. /iegl.r, W. B. Culver. 



Ex-Presideni-. Members of the Board- 

 Frederick Watts, D. Taggart, Jacob S. Hal- 

 deraan. Amos E. Kapp, John C. Morrow, J. 

 R. Eby. 



Corresponding Secretary— Elbridge Mc- 

 Conkey. 



Recording Secretary— D. W. Seller. 



Treasurer— John B. Rutherford. 



Chemist and Geologist— A. L. Kennedy. 



Librarian— William II. Egle. 



OFFICERS ELECTED. 



Mechanics' Library Association. 



At the annual meeting of the Mechanics' 

 Library Association, on the 15th ult., the fol- 

 lowing officers were elected to serve during the 

 ensuing year : 



President— II. R. McConomy. 



Vice President— George E. Zellcrs. 



Secretary- Samuel H. Zahm. 



Treasurer— Christian Gast. 



Library Committee— S. S. Rathvon, Wm. 

 F. Duncan, J. W. Byrne, D. C. Haverstick 

 and R. E. Snyder. 



Property Committee— G. M. Zahm, J. W. 

 Byrne, Philip Docr.som and J. D. Pyott. 



Librarian — S. S. Rathvon. 



By a resolution, the annual subscription 

 for others than members was fixed at $1. The 

 association has now over 5,000 books in the 

 Library. 



Berks Co. Agricultural and Horticultural 

 Society. 



At the annual meeting of the Berks County 

 Agricultural and Horticultural Society, held 

 in the Court House, in the City of Reading, 

 Pa., on Saturday, January 15th, 1831, the 

 following officers were elected to serve during 

 the ensuing year : 



President— Jacob G. Zen-. 



Vice-Presidents— George D. Stitzel, Adam 

 Styer. J. H. Reinhold, William R. High. 

 Reuben W. Scherer.. 



Secretary— Cyrus T. Fox. 



Corresponding Secretary-Albert 11. Fegely. 



Treasurer— Willi.am S. Ritter. 



Auditors— Matthias Mengle, Ezra High. 



The twenty-seventh annual exhibition of 

 the society will he held in the City of R«ad- 

 inir, September -27th, 28th, 29th and 30lb,- 

 18i81. 



The office of the society is at No. 11 J North 

 Sixth street, (Itmes and Dispatch Office.) 

 Reading, Pa. 



