52 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[April 



him a Coleopterous larvw; and, if it possesses 

 quick and rapid cursorial powers, loves dark- 

 ness, and attempts to hide itself, he may 

 prety safely conclude that it is predacious in 

 its habits. It is also true that some of the 

 larvse of Coleontera (the woodbores) have no 

 feet, and are poor pedestrians ; but time, ob- 

 servation and opportunity will instruct him 

 liow, when and where to use discrimination. 

 A kno^\'ledge of these things is becoming 

 every day more essential to the farmer, in his 

 conflicts with destructive insects, and he had 

 belter believe it and act accordingly just now. 

 It perhaps must needs be tliat insects will 

 come, but it is none the less a woe to him 

 through whose neglect they do come. They 

 are perhaps not altogether an unmixed evil, 

 but, if permitted to multiply with impunity, 

 that evil becomes disastrously manifest, and 

 at a time, too, and with an intensity, that 

 may baffle the best remedies against their de- 

 structive progress. But there is no use in in- 

 dulging in a universal alarm. Learn to dis- 

 criminate and you may then find out the 

 propertime when the alarm should "come in." 



THE SEVENTEEN-YEAR LOCUSTS. 

 Statements that have been made to the 

 efiect that the seventeen-year locusts are due 

 this summer are said by naturalists to be er- 

 roneous. The locust year for this vicinity is 

 1885, and not 1884. The seventeen-year 

 locusts appeared in Baltimore in 1851, 1868, 

 and will appear again during the middle of 

 May, 1885. A few specimens of the locusts 

 may be found during May, 1884, but they 

 will be members of a different brood. Mo&t 

 people seem to think that the seventeen-year 

 locust occurs but every seventeen years in 

 this country. This is all wrong, since it is 

 found every year, but only occurs at intervals 

 of seventeen years in any given locality. This 

 year is the season for the seventeen-year locust 

 in Virginia ; next year is the season for the 

 seventeen-year locust in Maryland. The locust 

 lays its eggs in brandies of trees. From these 

 eggs soon after they are laid small yellowish 

 larva, resembling already the future locust, 

 though lacking wings, issue and work their 

 way down the trunk of trees, following all 

 the roots to their extreme tips, where the 

 larvse fasten by means of a beak and draw 

 their nourishment from the roots. After 

 being in this position a long time, undergoing 

 however, several moults, they attain their 

 full growth as larva, and are found . three or 

 four inches from the surface of the ground 

 adhering to the roots of different plants. 

 Very early in 1885 they will undergo trans- 

 formation into pupa, which in the month of 

 May will work out of the ground to the sur- 

 face, forming peculiar hollow cones of earth 

 in which they undergo their last transforma- 

 tion and become full fledged locusts. Backing 

 out of this cone, they appear on the ground 

 still soft and unable to fly. In a few hours 

 they become hardened and seek the nearest 

 tree, in which they sing their love songs and 

 mate. — Baltimore Sun. 



AVOIDING THE HESSIAN FLY. 



In a paper read before a Scientific Associa 



tion at Minneapolis, Minn., last fall, it is 



stated that, contrary to general belief, the 



earliest sowings of winter wheat are not liable 



to so great injury by the Hessian fly as later 

 sown crops. A large number of observations 

 were made in Perry county. Pa., and the far- 

 mers there are said "to maintain that the 

 earliest sown wheat— that put in during the 

 first week of September— often yields a good 

 crop, while that wliich is sown between the 

 10th and 2-2d is badly infested, and the latest 

 —that sown in the last week of the month— 

 again escapes." According to the report of 

 the paper, in the American iiaturalist for 

 February, the author thinks that the early 

 sown wheat does not escape the fly, but it 

 grows strong, and tillers much more than the 

 late wheat, and the number of insects ,is not 

 sufficient to weaken so many stalks so that 

 they will fall. That later sown has less and 

 the number of larva3 to stalks is necessarily so 

 increased that the straw is sure to break 

 down, or even die outright, during the win- 

 ter, before the straw has been formed. The 

 author of the paper states that the spring 

 brood does the mischief seen before harvest, 

 hence many farmers never observe that the 

 attacks of the fall brood causes a great reduc- 

 tion in the numbers of these insects, which 

 are in the "flaxseed" or pupal form, and are 

 frozen in their winter quarters. The absence 

 of vitality in the wheat seems in some way to 

 render the insects more liable to danger from 

 severe cold, although there does not seem to 

 be any more appreciable warmth in a living 

 plant than in a dead one. It appears to the 

 writer of the paper that the insects, by kill- 

 ing wheat roots, become in some measure the 

 means of their own destruction, and tliat this 

 is an "efficient cause checking to a great ex- 

 tent the excessive multiplication of this pest." 



EXCERPTS. 



Good care, under all circumstances and at 

 all times, is a prime necessity to success in 

 breeding fowls. 



The total number of live cattle shipped to 

 European markets last year from the United 

 States was 67,964 ; quarters of beef, 384,162 ; 

 live sheep, 31,849 ; carcasses of mutton, 68,- 

 400. 



The Buckeye Land and Cattle Company 

 was organized in Kansas City last week. 

 Capital stock, S100,000, divided into shares of 

 $100 each. A Mrs. Nancy Bainbridge took 

 249 shares. 



' ' I BOUGHT a Shorthorn and yearling heifer 

 and heifer calf in 1870 ; have bred from them 

 52 head of recorded animals in the American 

 herd book, and have sold over $4,000 worth of 

 stock from them, mostly calves, and still have 

 a nice little herd left on hand," says H. Tal- 

 cott, in the Grange Bulletin. 



It is claimed that St. Joseph men have 

 »1,260,0C0 invested in the cattle business. 

 , Pennsylvania wool growers estimate 

 their loss by tariff reduction at over iff 2.000,- 

 000. 



H. F. Frte, a dealer of cattle in Now 

 York, failed last week for «50,000, assets 

 $0,000. 



Sidney, Kansas, wants stock yards. Sidney 

 ought to have them if she has any cattle to 

 ship. 



Wolves destroyed a good many cattle 

 in Washington and Marion counties, Iowa, 

 last winter. 



Canning Milk.— Mrs. S. W. W., Monti- 

 cello, N. Y., suggests, through the Orange 

 County Farmer, the idea of canning milk, 

 which may in some cases be desirable, as, for 

 instance, to bridge over a dairy drouth : 



"Visiting a farm a few years ago, some ex- 

 cellent coffee upon the table disclosed the 

 presence of cream. This surprised me, for I 

 knew the cows were dry, and there were no 

 very near neighbors. I asked, and the answer 

 was, 'O ! that is canned milk.' Since then, I 

 have done the same way two seasons, and in- 

 tend to do so again soon. When the milk is 

 brought ill and strained, put it on to boil in a 

 steamer, or pail set into a kettle of boiling 

 water. As soon as it reaches the boiling point 

 and begins to bubble, pour into glass jars al- 

 ready prepared and heated, and screw up im- 

 mediately. Keep it where it will not freeze, 

 and when needed it is ready for use." 



The annual session of the Colorado Cattle 

 Growers' Association was held in Denver 

 some time ago with a full attendance, and 

 much important business was transacted. The 

 topics discussed and the conclusions reached 

 were of general interest and proved that the 

 men engaged in the great industry represented 

 in the meeting were a unit in their aims. It 

 was estimated that the delegates represented 

 between 400,000 and 500,000 head, or about 

 one-third of the total amount of cattle grazed 

 in the State at a low calculation, therefore 

 they stood for between $10,000,000 and $12,- 

 000,000 of invested capital. The cattle inter- 

 ests of New Mexico are quite as extended as 

 those of Colorado, and are equally in need of 

 a compact organization. There are many 

 points of material interest which need to be 

 fully discussed and acted upon after discus- 

 sion, and the sooner our cattlemen get to 

 work and organize the better it will be for 

 them. — Las Vegas (N. M.) Gazette. 



A Cowley' county man is establishing a 

 hen ranch on Grouse creek. He starts out 

 with 1,500 grown hens. 



Cheyenne (Wyoming) Leader: A herd 

 of 130 cattle in Granite canon, in which W. 

 Deusley is interested, has suft'ered terribly 

 from a worm disease. The worm, believed to 

 have come from the stomach, lodges in the 

 throat, works into the windpipe, and the 

 beast dies. Various remedies have been 

 tried, all of which proved of no avail until 

 turpentine was tried. Since using this none 

 liave died and it is confi'deutly believed that it 

 is a specific. 



CONTRIBUTIONS. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 



Brookville, Ohio, April 8, 1884. 

 Mr. Editor— Dea?- Sir: Perhaps you 

 have readers unacquainted with the geology 

 of this valley (Miami), and, perhaps, unac- 

 quainted with the relation that geology bears 

 to agriculture. As water is the mother of 

 all rocks, so are rocks the mother of clays 

 and sands that enter into the formation of 

 soils. When a farmer sees soils and sub-soils 

 he ought to know what kind of rocks they 

 were derived from, or by seeing rocks lie 

 ought to know what kind of soil is in the 

 vicinity. If lime is abundant in the rocks 

 and these rocks decomposable, then it is likely 



