THE LANCASTER FARMER 



[January, 



It, is the same in any of the specialties in 

 human knowledge. By energy and persever- 

 ance one may attain to a position in which he 

 is almost certain to be underrated or over- 

 rated by those who are altogether ignorant of 

 those specialties. A man often attains dis- 

 tinction, not because he kuovcs so much, as 

 because his judges may know so little. Beal 

 knowledge does not come suddenly, simply 

 because it is more experimental than theoret- 

 ical. A knowledge how to swim, is worth a 

 thousand essays on swimming, when a practi- 

 cal test of swimming is required. 



An ornithologist may be voted an igno- 

 ramus because he cannot tell the name of a 

 bird that is in " the habit of sitting upon the 

 top-rail of a fence and jerking up its tail,' 

 without being informed of its size, color, and 

 outward contour. The spirit of these cogita- 

 tions is, that experimental knowledge is ac- 

 quired slowly, more or less laboriously, and to 

 all expensively ; and tlie man who labors 

 therein is worthy of adequate compensation ; 

 but, because one cannot " box the compas" in 

 human knowledge, it does not follow that he 

 therefore knows nothing. 



If the farmer would condescend to look 

 back to the periods of Xenojjhon and Pliny 

 and Columella, and scores of others strewn 

 along the interval between their days and 

 ours, he would discover how very slowly pro- 

 gressive agricultural knowledge has been de- 

 veloped in the world, and what an immense 

 sum it has cost. And, peradventure, he 

 might be impressed with the conviction, that 

 nothing is, or ever has been accomplished 

 without expense, either mental, physical or 

 pecuniary — and perhaps never will be. 



AN ENTOMOLOGICAL PHENOMENON- 

 During a thaw about the income ot the 

 the present month (January 18*^4), Mr. F. A. 

 Beates, near Willow Street, Lancaster county, 

 found a large number of a "peculiar worm" 

 running very nimbly over the snow ; and al- 

 though the snow had melted considerably the 

 day previous, yet on the morning when he 

 first discovered the worms, the ground was 

 still covered with a shallow crisp sheet of it; 

 and as the field in which he found them con- 

 tains wheat, he felt some misapprehensions in 

 regard to them, for they were so numerous 

 that they attracted a behungered colony of 

 crows in the neighborhood, which gobbled 

 them up as precious morsels. These worms 

 are fully one inch in length in their present 

 expanded condition; of a dull whitish color; 

 the head, the dorsal portion of the thoracic 

 and abdomenal segments, and the caudal ap- 

 pendages are shining brown in color. Indeed 

 the sutures are so much expanded that each 

 segment presents a transverse subquadrate 

 spot, or scale. Underneath each segment has 

 seven brownish shiny spots of different sizes.- 

 The antenna are four-jointed, the mandables 

 toothed on the inner margin, and the caudal 

 appendages alluded to, consist of a proleg be- 

 neath and two slightly bristled filaments above, 

 on the whole, there is no doubt in my mind that 

 it is the larva of a species of CaraBid.e, a 

 family of predacious "Ground Beetles." In- 

 deed, on turning to page 50 of Pruf. Riley's 

 1st Report on the noxious and innoxious in- 

 sects of Missouri, I find he has this very larva 

 described and illustrated; and that too, in the 



act of capturing aud devouring the larva of 

 the curculio; aud he refers it to the genius 

 Haijjalus. As Harpalus ^ensylvanicus is very 

 abundant in Lancaster county, and especially 

 in the southern portion of it, it is, very proba- 

 bly that species. My first impression was 

 that it belonged to the Elaleridce or Lampy- 

 rWw— "Click Beetle," or "Firefly"— but, out 

 of the alcohol and under a magnifier, soon re- 

 vealed its character, and I can assure Mr. B. 

 that he need have no anxieties about this in- 

 sect depredating upon his wheat. The only 

 thing to be regretted now is that the crows 

 destroyed so many of them, for their absence 

 next summer may allow the multiplication of 

 some noxious species upon which they feed. 

 Even had they proved the larvae of fireflies, 

 there would have been nothing to be alarmed 

 at, for these too are carniverous in their 

 habits. 



Although many of the "Click Beetles" are 

 wood borers, yet some of them— popularly 

 called "wire worms" — are sometimes destruc- 

 tive to wheat, corn and tobacco. 



The most remarkable phase of the subject 

 is that these insect larva should be found 

 running about upon the s::r)w. At no time 

 since the ground has been covered with snow 

 (some days before Christmas), has the temper- 

 ature been suflnciently genial to tempt insects 

 to come abroad— except it might be "snow 

 fleas"— and yet, according to the observations 

 6f Mr. Beates, there were hundreds, perhaps 

 thousands of them at a season of the year, 

 and under circumstances which usually pro- 

 duce torpidity in the insect world. 



On Saturday the l-2th inst., Mr. A. H. 

 Summy of Oregon, Lancaster county, brouglit 

 me some snow fleas and reported that millions 

 of them were on that day scattered over the 

 snow for miles in his neighborhood. 



Possibly during a temporary elevation of 

 the temperature these Harpalidan larvce may 

 have been forced abroad in search of food, and 

 it would have been interesting to know wheth- 

 er any snow fleas were abroad in the same 

 locality. They might have been very easily 

 overlooked, especially when a larger and more 

 formidable insect was present; and one too of 

 whose habits Mr. B. was suspicious, and to 

 which his attention was wholly directed. 



It is a great pity that farmers in general do 

 not take sufficient interest in entomology to 

 learn to distinguish between noxious and in- 

 noxious msects; it would be a great help to 

 them in solving the problem of insect depre- 

 dations. 



INTENSE COLD. 



The following, clipped from the columns of 

 a local journal, so far as it goes, eclipses the 

 experiences of tlie "oldest inhabitant." It 

 is always so, during " snaps " of intense cold 

 or heat, until some old litefary rooter ex- 

 humes something "to the contrary notwith- 

 standing." 



" Saturday night aud Sunday morning, 

 January 5th and 6th, 1884, were the coldest 

 felt throughout the VVest and South for many 

 •years. Temperatures were reported of 27 de- 

 grees below zero at Chicago ; 32 below at Du- 

 buque ; 24 below at Des Moines, Kansas City, 

 and Indianapolis ; 48 below at Jamestown, 

 Dakota ; 39 below at Bismarck, Dakota ; 20 

 below at St. Paul, Minnesota ; 20 below at 



Louisville, Kentucky ; 23 below at St. Louis ; 

 14 below at Cleveland, Ohio ; 20 below at Cin- 

 cinnati, and 5 below at Pittsburg. The effect 

 of the cold in Chicago and other Western 

 cities was to continue the paralysis of busi- 

 ness caused by the setting iu of the frigid 

 spell. In Chicago several plate glass windows 

 were cracked by the frost, and near St. Louis 

 a number of mules, in transit by rail from 

 Texas, perished in the cars. The cold wave 

 extended to the Gulf, the temperature at Mo- 

 bile on Saturday night being 20 above zero. 

 Many orange trees were killed, and it is believ- 

 ed the whole crop of spring cabbages in Mobile 

 county, numbering nearly 4,000,000 head, and 

 valued at five hundred thousand dollars, is 

 lost. 



The temperature in the Northwest and and 

 West was rising on Sunday, and in the even- 

 ing the thermometrical records were as fol- 

 lows : Fort Garry, Manitoba. 18 below zero; 

 Bismarck, Dakota, 12 below; Morhead, Minn. 

 10 below; Cleveland, Ohio, 3 above; Cinciu- 

 natti, 5 above; Eastport, Me., 1 above ; Bos- 

 ton, 14 above. 



The maximum cold of the season was 

 reached on Sunday morning in portions of 

 New England. The weather at Vergennes, 

 Vermont, was the coldest experienced in ten 

 years, registering 36 degrees below zero; at 

 West Randolph it registered 3"^ degrees below; 

 Brattleboro, 20 to 25 below; White River 

 Junction, 25 below; at Jonhsbury, 40 below; 

 Barre, 42 below; Woodstock, New Hampshire, 

 36 below; Hanover, New Ha.npshire, 28 to 35 

 below. At Charleston, South Carolina, at 4 

 o'clock on Sunday morning it was 13 above 

 zero, the coldest weather recorded there in 

 135 years. At Petersburg, Virginia, on Sat- 

 urday night it was 5 below. 



EXCERPTS. 



The New York World is authority for the 

 statement that the plantain, if not permitted 

 to go to seed for two years, will die out. Mow 

 previous to seed time two years in succession. 



In several States there are local and rural 

 agents of societies for the prevention of cruel- 

 ty to animals. Farmers who are cruel to their 

 animals should be complained of. Sometimes 

 farmers are arrested on the street for driving 

 sick horses but whoever heard of a farmer be- 

 ing complained of for ill-treating his dog or 

 cat? In the streets of New York the society's 

 agents look at passing horses in the thickest 

 crowds, and take a sick or galled one out of 

 the shafts and compel the driver to care for 

 it. The agents have the same power by law, 

 that is possessed by a policeman. 



One of the most promising trees for forest 

 culture, where the conditions favor, is the 

 American chestnut. It grows spontaneously 

 from New Hampshire to Carolina, and from 

 the eastern slope of the Alleghenies to the 

 Western prairies. Not only is the tree valu- 

 able for its nuts, the production of which be- 

 gins in a very few years from planting, but 

 the timber is very valuable for fencing; it is 

 admirable for house-finishing, the color and 

 grain of the wood being very attractive.— C/ii- 

 cago Inter-Ocean. 



• As long as this country is compelled to im- 

 port annually large quantities of eggs there 

 need be no fear that raising poultry will not 

 prove profitable.— C/iicaj/o Tribune. 



