1881.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER 



53 



came so abundant in France and Germany, 

 their respective f^overnments offered compen- 

 sations for their collection, of which offer the 

 poor availed themselves, and returned them 

 by bushels. Among other things they were 

 converted into soap. But some of the cicadas 

 are capable of a still more advanced use. 

 The larva of a Chinese species {Flata limbata) 

 and one of the smallest iu the family, secretes 

 au unctuous substance on the branches of 

 trees, which hardens into wax, which is mixed 

 with oil and made into a superior kind, of 

 candles. This wax is white and glossy, and 

 13 employed as a remedy by Chinese physi- 

 j cians, in several disea»ses, and especially as a 

 I preventive of palpitations of the heart and 

 I swoouings. 



■ In conclusion, most of tin- stories about the 

 I dangerous character of the Cicada are merely 

 j apocryphal, or exageralions. 'It is the same 

 in regard to the story that they continue 

 ' eight and a half years going down into the 

 earth, and then requin^ eight years and a half 

 to come up again. I bavu liad ilie l,iri\t -.d 

 3, ."), 9, 11 and 1.3 years after llic rejiuhir year, 

 and they have all been found within the range 

 of root vegetation. A record was made, I 

 believe, in 1834, that a larva or pupa was 

 found 30 feet below the surface, which is not 

 at all improbable, as under certain circum- 

 stances, the roots of trees may extend so far 

 down. It is certain that during ;i few weeks 

 previous to their advent, they arc usually 

 found at a very inconsiderable distance be- 

 low the surface, seemingly waiting for their 

 metamorphosis. The extraordinary phenome- 

 non of the seventeen-year cicadas building 

 galleries, in the form of tubes, from six to ten 

 inches above ground, was witnessed here in 

 Lancaster city in 1868, and perhaps no where 

 else on earth. Several of these tubes were 

 preserved and sent abroad as insect architec- 

 tural curiosities, and the phenomenon re- 

 corded and Lhe tubes illustrated in books, &c. 

 On a part of Mr. Hensel's lot tlie soil was 

 saturated by a series of rainfalls, about the 

 period of the Cicada's appearance. Tliey 

 seemed to be too near their evolution to go 

 " deep down " again, and yet not quite ready 

 for their final change, and so they built these 

 tubes above ground, and therein awaited that 

 important event. 



And now, having delivered my Cicadiau 

 "Rigmarole," I thank you for your indulgent 

 patience ; for your great self-denial, and for 

 the interest you seem to have manifested 

 under such an extraordinary infliction. 



VENNOR'S LATEST WEATHER PRE- 

 DICTION. 



Vennor Writes: "The winter of 1881 is 

 not over yet by any means, and nothing in 

 my opinion could render this more probable 

 than the present term of mild weathei'. There 

 are yet at least three storm periods in this 

 month— namely, on the 12th, 13th or 14th; 

 on the 16th and 17th, and lastly on the 20th 

 and ilst. The last two periods will give us 

 lieavy snow foils, one of which is likely to be 

 the heaviest fall of the winter. This will be 

 prelty general over a large part of North 

 America, and is likely to cross over to Great 

 Britain. There will also be one more cold dip 

 of considerable severity. The month [March] 

 will end with rain and slush. 



"Putting that and that together," the 

 winter of 1880 and 1881 has been one of the 

 longest and coldest on record. We say one of 

 them, because we believe it has had is par- 

 allel even within our own experience; some- 

 how, the last of our experiences are always 

 the best or the worst, more because they are 

 fresher in our memories, than because of their 

 real characters, whether founded on facts or 

 mere fancies. After an event has passed and 

 become chronicled merely in memory, its in- 

 tensity, or the joy or calamity involved in it 

 Boon fades away and succeeding events less 

 pronounced or less intense are looked upon as 

 enhanced repetitions of particular events 

 that have passed. It ever has been thus, and 

 ever will be thus with those who do not make 



a written record of time's changes as the 

 world moves on. To our apprehension the 

 winter of 1834 and 1835 was as protracted 

 and as intensly cold as that of 1880 and 1881, 

 and even exceeded it in its continuation. 

 During that winter the Susquehanna was rig- 

 idly bound in its icy fetters until far in the 

 month of March, although we do not hesitate 

 to .say that to our present recollection, we 

 have never before experienced such intense 

 and prolonged cold as that of the forepart of 

 the present month, and especially the .5lh and 

 6th. As to the winds, we always have them 

 about the opening of si)ring either, in .March 

 or April. But what of Mr Vennor, the Cana- 

 dian weather prognosticator? Is he a great 

 prophet or noti" According to those who 

 profess to have devoted their entire lives to 

 meteorological observations, nothing is easier 

 than a true forecast of the weather. It is 

 quite certain that this sort of experience ob- 

 tains very extensively among "Old Salts " 

 who have spi.-nl almost their entire lives on 

 till' bud of "old ocean;" but far inland they 

 pnliaps would lie as much at fault as "land- 

 lubbers." On the whole Mr. Vennor's pre- 

 dictions were perhaps a little more correct 

 than those of "Baer's Almanac," but then it 

 may be easier to foretell, cold weather up in 

 Canada than it is farther South, and easier 

 still up about the North Pole. On the 16th 

 of the month of March, the snow drops and 

 the Black Hellebore in our garden were visited 

 by hundreds of lively honey-bees; still in a 

 country so vast as the United States and Can- 

 ada the prophecy may have been fully verified 

 elsewhere. It would have been "curious" if 

 it had not been. 



Queries and Answers. 



Pine Grove, Pa-, Maicb 



S. S. Rathvon, Eiq.,— Dear Sir : Herewith lind 

 some eggs found under some rubbish. They were 

 adlieriog to leaves, grass, ifec, and I thought llrst 

 they were radish seeds, but discovered the error on 

 biting one through,when I found it to be tough, and 

 and like the coeoou of an insect. If you think it 

 worth while, let us know through the Fanner, what 

 insect laid the eggs, &c. 



Yours truly, W. H. S. 



Your letter and contents duly received, but 

 we do not think we can , give the information 

 you desire. We would remark, however, that 

 there is nothing, perhaps, that is not "worth 

 while;" at least we think there is not. Every 

 thing has an importance attached to it, when 

 we know its relation to other things. We 

 have on several occasions found thete tough 

 little seed-like objects attached to decayed 

 vesjetation, among' rubbish, but they were usu- 

 ally larger than those you send. "They do not 

 seem to be either seeds or insect "cocoons,' 

 but more likely small species of fungi. 



They are flattened, pear-shaped lobes, 

 six mm in length and two mm in width 

 at the widest part. Under the microscopic 

 they are of a brownish color, with a rougli 

 or seabrous surface, and resemble Japanese 

 persimmon figs. They are solid all through, 

 and as tough as gutta percha. The inside is 

 a pearly-wiiite, and closely resemble the inside 

 of a papau seed. They evidently are for- 

 eign to the plants on which they are found, 

 although they seem to have grown out of 

 them ; and this leads us to conjecture that 

 they are a species of parasitic/imj/us. There 

 is nothing like the structure of a cocoon alxiut 

 them, and if they were insect eggs, they 

 would have an interior cavity and an outer 

 shell, which is not the case. The outer in- 

 tegument is very thin, and in cutting them 

 through it comes off in scales along the mar- 

 gins of the incision. If they were seeds, at 

 this season of the year, they would retain 

 their form when dry, which they do not, b^it 

 shrink into one-fourth their size, but expand 

 again when immersed in water or alcohol. 

 They differ greatly iu size and intensity of 

 coloring ; the one we measured being the 

 largest, most of them being ;not more than 

 oue-fourth that size, which would also be 



against the egg theory. Seeds they cannot 

 possibly be, because they seem to be growing 

 out of both the stems and the leaves. We 

 will endeavor to identify them and when we 

 succeed we will apprise you of it through the 

 columns of The Farmer. In the meantime 

 we do not think you need fear any danger 

 from tlium. 



THE "SACK-WORM." 

 Afrs. H. B. B., LancasUr, Pa. The spin- 

 dle-shape cocoons you sent us some weeks 

 ago — evidently _taken from an Arbor mice, tree 

 ari! the Itabilucula of a Lc|)idopterous insect 

 known under the names of "Sack-worm," 

 "Basket-carrier," "Drop-worm," "Sack- 

 trager," and other names, but in scientific 

 language it is called Thyridopterii xepliem- 

 oeriformis., a name almost " as long as the 

 moral law." Perhaps if it knew the space 

 its name occupies in natural history, it would 

 be better mannered than it is. It is notorious 

 as a tree defoliator, especially conebearlng 

 trees, and most especially, perhaps, the Arbor 

 ViUf.. It may have a choice, but it is by no 

 means restricted by that choice, and will at- 

 tack almost any kind of tree. We have 

 known it to be abundant on linden, maple, 

 elm, apricot, plum, locust, apple, pear, 

 various species of pine, quince, oaks— in short 

 on nearly all kinds except the peach, and we 

 have heard that it has been known in a 

 "strait" to attack the peach. Many of the 

 follicles now found on trees are the deserted 

 habilacula of the males of last season, but a 

 goodly number are those of the female pupa 

 filled with eggs, and now before the trees have 

 put forth their leaves, is the time to collect 

 and destroy them. If the season is favora- 

 ble, between the 1st and the l-")th of May, 

 the young will be hatched from the eggs that 

 have remained in the sacks or baskets of hist 

 summer. If they arc left undisturbed until 

 the last of May or the beginning of June, the 

 trees will be in full foliage, and for a month 

 or two the foliage will be too dense to see 

 them. Each female deposits one hundred or 

 more ('ggs,and these eggs possess the possibili- 

 ties of the same number of caterpillars. 

 These caterpillars are never nakedly seen, 

 for as soon as the young are excluded from 

 the eggs they begin to form their sacks, and 

 these they carry with them wherever they 

 go, only protruding the head and the three 

 thoracic segments of the anterior part of the 

 body. No liquid or powdered remedy can 

 reach them, nor can birds dislodge them from 

 their haliitaeula. If these insects are per- 

 mitted to continue on the trees to their injury, 

 the resi>onsibility must ri;st with those who 

 own the trees they infest, for we know of no 

 insect lliat is more accessible, especially dur- 

 ing late fall, winter and early spring. 



Essays. 



HOW WE ARE POISONED.* 



Thousands of persons die every year from 

 poisons taking into the stomach. I propose 

 briefly to show in what manner it' is done, 

 and also to show that thousands of persons 

 also suffer pains, some of them almost inde- 

 scribable, from the absorption of poisons into 

 the body. On the outside of the bidy are 

 millions of little holes called absorbents, 

 which have the power like a suction pump of 

 drawing into the body almost anything that 

 may come in contact with the skin. Hence 

 it is a self-evident fact that under no consid- 

 eration should poisons of any kind be handled 

 nor should they be taken into the alimentary 

 canal. The object of a man or animal's 

 stomach and intestines is to convert food into 

 blood, and any foreign substance in these 

 organs acts (like a splinter in the flesh) irri- 

 tantly. Hence they are contra-indicated. 

 Newspapers throughout our commonwealth 



•Rear! bo fore the .^pril mectinR of the LiincasUf 

 County Aerricultural and Horticultural Society, by Dr. A 

 0. Qreen. 



