The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. RATHVOH, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., JUNE, 1884. 



Vol. XTl No. 6. 



Editorial. 



JUNE. 



" But e'er the mind could fully scan 

 The beauties of the maid, 

 A stately and majestic dame 

 In death her cold form laid, 

 Then with her golden wand she struck 

 The blossoms from the trees, 

 And from the sunny plains she fau'd 

 The torrid summer breeze — 

 The feather'd songsters of the vale 

 .Joined in tlieir tuneful lays, 

 The lambkins on the mossy lawn 

 Engaged in vernal plays — 

 She bore a pearl vase flU'd with fruit 

 Of summers early moon, 

 Her robes of tissue, and her mien, 

 Betoken'd " smiling June." 

 This is the sixth month of the year by com- 

 iiiim consent among Christian nations and 

 IKiiiiles. It was so named by the Romans, 

 Iriim the festivals given this month in honor 

 (if Juno., the daughter of Saturn and Ops ; 

 till- .sister and wife of Jupiter ; the Queen of 

 lieaven— mythologically speaking — and the 

 guardian deity of women, especially married 

 women. 



" He, in delight 

 Smiled with superior love ; && Jupiter 

 I hi Juno smiles, when he impreens the clouds 

 That shed May flowers." 



Among the Saxons it was called Hauy 

 iiKiiKit, or hay-month, the month in which the 

 hay was harvested in certain favorable locali- 

 ties, and when the sun enters the sign of 

 Lancer. It includes thirty days. The Latin 

 name is Junius, from Juno, because it was 

 saired to that goddess ; German, Juni, from 

 the genitive Junii; French, Jnin ; Prussian, 

 .lun'h; Spanish, Junio; Portugese, Junho; 

 It.tlian, Giuyno. 



According to almost universally acknowl- 

 edged authority in the Middle, States, the 

 kitihen-gardeoer at least, will, during this 

 month be mainly occupied in cultivating the 

 ginwing crops. The rapid growth of the va- 

 rious kind of weeds at this season of the year, 

 will remind him of the necessity of timely and 

 treuchent exertion, in order to subordinate 

 tliein to his interest. In order to do this 

 eilictually and profitably, it does not require 

 tlie excessive labor it did half a century ago. 

 as the inventive genius of the present gener- 

 al mn has devised many helps in the form of 

 apinopriate implements. If the "slow-coach- 

 ed farmer or gardener will not avail himself 

 of the use of these, or utilize others of equal 

 value, he deserves to be "hard-worked" to 

 the end of his days, without being entitled to 

 much credit therefor. Perhaps, in nine cases 

 .out of ten, when the husbandman is com- 

 pelled to work so very hard, so early and so 

 late, it is because he works too much with his 

 hands, and not enough with his head. 



Of course, a good many vegetables which 

 were planted early in the season, will now be 

 more or less exhausted, this is therefore the 

 month in which to plant for a succession in 

 crops, especially peas and hunch-beans, and 



those already in growth may now be tliorough- 

 ly cultivated. Beets, cabbages, brocoli and 

 celery may also be thinned or planted out. 

 Cucmubcrs and swjar-corn, may also be plant- 

 ed for crop successions. Endives and other 

 salad plants may bo sown for later use. 

 Many years ago we were ([uite surprised to 

 find a fair supply of green peas, beans and 

 corn in the New York market, near the end 

 of October. Since that i)eriod crop succes- 

 sions have become more common, especially 

 in the vicinity of large cities, but the matter 

 is still almost in statu quo, in the great county 

 of Lancaster. Green peas, beans and cucum- 

 bers are famiUar things in London and Paris 

 in midwinter. It is true, that canned fruits 

 and vegetables now supply the place of those 

 cultivated out of season; but they are still not 

 so fresh, so crisp and so normally flavored, as 

 those gathered off the stocks and vines, 

 especially those which mature in this genial 

 months of .June and July. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTATIONS. 



The pest known as the curculio is already 

 making sad havoc among the young fruit of 

 plum and apricot trees. The little destroyer 

 is about the size and has the appearance of a 

 black ant. It cuts a long slit in the fruit and 

 there deposits an egg. This soon develops 

 into a worm, which rapidly destroys the fruit. 

 Mr. C. E. Graybill has collected some of the 

 curculio in a vial, and most of those who have 

 seen them had supposed them to be black 

 ants. 



The above paragraph we find in the Colum- 

 bia news column of the New Era of May 19th, 

 and we think the writer of it is on the wrong 

 track, when he says the curculio " is about 

 the size and has the appearance of a black 

 ant." The curculio that infests the apricot, 

 peach, cherry, apple, quince, etc., has no 

 such appearance ; besides, the size given is 

 very indefinite, as black auts vary very much 

 in size, from a sixteenth to a full inch in 

 length. No one that had ever seen a curculio, 

 could, by any po,ssibility, confound it with a 

 black ant. The genus Curculio, which is now 

 the type of tlie family OurcxdionidfK, includes 

 •about fifteen hundred different species, and 

 did we not know that some of these species do 

 bear a resemblance to a black iint, we should 

 pronounce the above paragraph a most mag- 

 nificent specimen of " Moonshine;" as it is 

 we would thank Mr. C. E. G., or the writer 

 of the above, or any one else, to send us 

 specimens of insects that resemble black ants, 

 and that "cut long slits in the fruit.'' What 

 is [wpularly known as the Curculio does not 

 cut a long slit in fruit at all, but a short, cre.s- 

 cent-shapcd slit, and from the peculiar articu- 

 lation of the head and thorax it is doubtful 

 whether it could make any incision at all ex- 

 cept a crescent-shaped one. 



As " most of those who have seen them 

 supposed them to be black ants," it is possi- 

 ble that they arc black ants .• for, it is a very 

 common thing for black ants, and also ants of 

 other colors, to ascend trees, shrubbery and 

 flowering plants, to lap up the saccharine 



exudations, which are secreted by the young 

 leaves and flowers. Moreover, there are va- 

 rious species of Aphids (plant-lice, ant-cows) 

 that infest fruit trees in the spring of the year, 

 some of which are also black, and resemble 

 an ant much nearer than they do a curculio, 

 and these are often herded by the ants, which 

 Ian up their sweet excretions. It is about 

 time that " the curculio " had a more familiar 

 recognition, and a more certain identification. 



Technically restricted, the aforesaid "Cur- 

 culio," or ".Snout-beetle," or "Plum-weevil," 

 or " Little Turk," or any other name that 

 people may choose to give it, ia a Conotra- 

 chelus, and, by way of distinction, C nenuphar, 

 there being about twenty species of that 

 genus ; so that in referring to it specifically, 

 the definite article is entirely out of place, 

 there being about one hundred genera now 

 belonging to the old Liuiuean genus Curculio; 

 and it is doubtful if we have a single species 

 of the original genus in the United States. 



No, the Curculio is no more like a black 

 (oiJ— and for the matter of that a black uncle, 

 either— "than Hyperion to a Satyr;" there- 

 fore, the writer of the above-quoted para- 

 graph, will please revise it. 



The most expressive English name for the 

 plum curculio is a "Snout-beetle," because, 

 as a family, these insects are distinguishable 

 from all other beetles by the front portion of 

 the head being more or less extended in the 

 form of a .snout, at the end of which the sharp 

 cutting forceps, or jaws, are located, and the 

 species that in times past, and now has been 

 and is so destructive to the plum and peach 

 may be distinguished from all North Ameri- 

 can snout-beetles by having on the centre of 

 each wing cover an elongated black shining 

 hump, and behind these humps there is a 

 more or less conspicuous yellowish band, 

 marked in the middle with white— sometimes 

 the whole band oeiug white, or whitish. The 

 abdomen is united with the thorax by its 

 whole ba.se, whereas in ants this union is by 

 means of a peduncle or slender stem ; not so 

 long as in some species of wasp.s, yet very dis- 

 tinct. On the whole, when the feet and snout 

 are drawn in close to the body, and the insect 

 "plays possum," it resembles a small dried 

 fruit-bud, and not much unlike it in size 

 and color, the whole animal being barely a 

 quarter of an inch in length. So much for 

 the "curculio." 



THE SOLDIER BEETLE. 



Mount Joy, May 19, If^"^. 



I enclose an insect which some call a " Chi- 

 nee," or "Chinch-bug." It is said to be the 

 bug that sometimes destroys the wheat crop 

 in the far West. We read the Daily New Era. 

 If you liave time, please give us the proper 

 name and history of the new comer. A. G. 



The insects alluded to in the above note 

 were duly received, " alive and kicking." 

 They are not bugs at all, they are beetles ; 

 nor arc they " newcomers." We have known 

 them these five and forty years. The "chinch" 

 is a true bug, the most familiar type of which 

 is the "bed-bug." These Insects are some- 



