The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. BATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., MARCH, 1884. 



Vol. xn Mo. 3. 



Editorial. 



MARCH. 



" Now who, I ask'd, in this wlcnl world 

 Will barken to my prayer? 

 A gentle voice borne on llie breeze 

 Said ' see ! look over there, ' 

 He, with the helmet and the shield— 

 With glittering sword and crest, 

 The gentle south wind can command 

 And give thee peace and rest. 

 But he was fickle, and forsooth 

 Blew hot and cold together, 

 And oftimes raced in blasts thai tore 

 The grass roots from the heather. 

 His visage now was decked with smiles ; 

 Anon 'twas cold and arch. 

 And in my woud'ring ears he breathed 

 'I'm blustering railing March." 



This is tlie third calendar montli, and, ac- 

 cording to calendric divisions of tlie year, tlic 

 frsl spring month ; altliough as a general 

 thing, in our latitude, the month is far ad- 

 vanced before tlicre is any very particular 

 manifestation of spring — not much before the 

 vernal equinox, and especially so, wlieu our 

 meteorological phenomena are overruled by 

 the stern prognostications of the gromul-hoij. 



Maucii, is derived from Mars, tlie god of 

 war, and it frequently occurs that there is an 

 elemental conflict between winter and spring, 

 that continues the entire month. March 

 mud, and 3Iarch dvst, are familiar character- 

 istics of this month ; concerning the latter, it 

 has been said — ".4. bxishel of March dust is 

 worth a king^s ransom." This was said be- 

 cause according to the Anglo-Saxon laws, the 

 fine for murder was proportioned to the rank 

 of the person killed ; 10 pounds being the ran- 

 som of a common man, and 00 pounds the 

 ransom of a king. Maus was originally an 

 agricultural deity. As the reputed fatlier of 

 Romulus, he was held to be the progenitor of 

 the Roman people, who paid him higher 

 honors than any other god excei)t Jupiter. 

 lie was also regarded as " divine fortitude" 

 [I. iM milled. As Bacchus, the evil demon, is 

 thr guardian power of Mahometanism, so 

 Mills, or divine fortitude, is the guardian 

 liiiwrr ot Christianity. 



In old French and Prussian the name of 

 this month is Mars; in German Martz; in 

 Spanish and Italian Marzo; in Portugese 

 Marco; and in Latin Martius; with modifi- 

 cations of these, when the word is used as a 

 verb: namely, Marche, Marcha, Marcio and 

 Marsch. 



"March, in like a lion, out like a lamb," 

 is about as wise a weather prognostication as 

 that which relates to Candlemas and the 

 "ground-hog," and perhaps much older ; and 

 the truth of which we may have an oppor- 

 tunity of testing the present season, if we 

 understand clearly what is meant by coming 

 in like a lion and going out like a lamb. The 

 present season the month of March was 

 ushered in decidedly cold, but it was not 

 stormy, the preceding storm had sub.sided 

 before the initiation of the month. If, how- 



ever, this can bo legitimately interpreted as 

 coining in like a lion, tlien we ought to have 

 a mild, lamb-like ending of the month ; the 

 certainty of which we can only know when 

 the prophecy has been fulfilled, or has failed. 

 March has always been a stormy month, 

 owing to its being a transition month from 

 winter to spring. It is often, from this pivotal 

 position among the months, the scene of great 

 meteorological changes, especially during the 

 weeks preceding and succeeding the vernal 

 equinox. During this month, usually, the 

 active outdoor work of the farmer commences, 

 and is pursued as vigorously as the weather 

 will permit, if it had not already commenced 

 in February. 



What work ought to be done in the month 

 of March on the farm, in the garden and the 

 orchard will depend to a great extent on the 

 character of the weather, and the latitude in 

 which the farm is located. An important 

 preliminary to spring is divesting trees, shrub- 

 bery and other species of vegetation of all 

 chrysalids, coccoons and egg-clusters of nox- 

 ious insects, remembering that this is about 

 the last month in which this operation can be 

 successfully performed, under considerations 

 of prevention. As many farmers do the great 

 bulk of pruning this month (unless February 

 has been mild) they should at the same time 

 make the removal of insect embryo as much 

 of a specialty as any other object involved in 

 pruning and cleaning. After plowing is com- 

 menced many insects will be thrown to the 

 surface, in the form of pupm or chrysalids ; 

 and also many hibernating la7-vce and imagos. 

 If there are no birds, chickens and pigs to 

 follow up the plowman and appropriate these 

 animals they should be gathered by hand and 

 be destroyed. This work is fast becoming 

 one of the essentials of farming, if a profit is 

 expected to be realized— it is one of the con- 

 comitants of agricultural i)rogress. 



MORE OF THE GROUND-HOG. 

 It is ratlier unfortunate and misleading 

 that the term " Hog," should have ever been 

 applied to this animal, especially now, that 

 his weather prognostications have been so 

 amply and so emphatically verified. We say 

 misleading, because only a few days ago, in a 

 local "squib" of one of our dailies, he was al- 

 luded to as a Pachyderm. No doubt, 

 through the malassociation of names the 

 writer may have supposed him to belong to 

 that thick-skinned group, because the com- 

 mon hog (Sus) belongs to it ; but this is a 

 mistake. The ground-ho2, or more properly, 

 "Marmot," is a Rodent. Besides, there is 

 an African Mammal called "Ground-hog," 

 (Mtjrmecnphaga capicnsis) which belongs to the 

 sixth order of CuviEits classification — the 

 Edentat.v — because they have no teeth in 

 front ; and, as the generic name implies, live 

 on ants. By virtue of its scientific classifica- 

 tion the marmot finds itself in company with 

 the rats and mice, the gophers, the squirrels, 

 the hares, the muskrats, the porcupines, the 



beavers, the chinchilliw, and a large number 

 of others, both on the Eastern and Western 

 Continents, all of which belong to Cuvier's 

 fifth order, Rodextata, or gnawers. Where- 

 as, the Pachydekmata constitutes the sev- 

 enth order of Cuvieu, and includes the ele- 

 phants, the tapirs, the hogs, the peccaries, 

 the hippotami, the rhinoceri, the horses, 

 zebras, asses, etc. Although it cannot be 

 said that the marmot belongs to as highly or- 

 ganized and intelligent an order as the ele- 

 phant, the horse, etc. do; yet when it comes to 

 forecasting the weather, in comparison with 

 them, he quite "takes the rag ofl' the bush," 

 and especially this year, he seems to have 

 taken both "rag and bush" together. Al- 

 though we would not extravagantly exalt the 

 marmot for his prescience, yet history records 

 the deification of a Roman Emperor's horse, 

 for far less than that. True, a local poet has 

 embalmed his memory in verse ; but, if he 

 was not such a consummate nuisance to our 

 farming population, we should not hesitate 

 much to accord him a monument, or a situa- 

 tion in the Signal Service of the United 

 States. We merely wish to place him in 

 scientific classification wliere he properly be- 

 longs. He doesn't belong to the thick-skinned 

 order of animals, hence his susceptibility to 

 meteorological influences. 



J. B. G. 



We wish we could reply intelligently to our 

 correspondent J. B. G., but as he alludes to 

 insect pests of last season, of which he never 

 sent us specimens, we can only guess at what 

 he means — indeed, if we really knew, or had 

 before us, the insects that destroyed his wheat, 

 his currants and Ids grapes, the thoughts sug- 

 gested by his communication could only find 

 cxi)ression through a clever sized volume— 200 

 pages octavo at least. 



To show how indefinite the term uxmn is, 

 we liave only to reflect that nearly all insects, 

 at one period of tlieir devi'loi)ment are worms, 

 of tliese worms_^re well delined species attack 

 the roots, four attack the canes or branches, 

 </iree attack the fruit, and thirty Jive sijecies 

 attack the leaves and the flowers of the 

 grape alone. The currant and gooseberry 

 have three species attacking the canes or 

 stems, four attacking the fruit, and twelve 

 tlie leaves. Now, here are sixty-six dis- 

 tinct species of insects that infest 

 the grapes, the currants, and the gooseberries ; 

 and we enumerate them here in order that 

 our correspondent may have an idea of the 

 diflicidty of prescriljing a remedy for any of 

 them, without knowing anything about them, 

 except that they are worms. And these sixty- 

 six species are not spontaneous productions. 

 Many of them have been discovered and de- 

 scribed long years ago ; all have evolved from 

 eggs that had previously been deposited by the 

 parent females. The very fact that, to our 

 correspondent's apprehension, the worms on 

 liis small fruits and grains came suddenly, 

 and full grown, evinces that in their earlier 



