116 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[August, 



To many people, the knowledge that the firm 

 of Don AN.'i Roe have defrawded their credi- 

 tors out of seven millions of dollars, it is the 

 first intimation that such a sum as seven 

 millions exists in the world, and they wonder 

 by what species of legerdemain it should all 

 have gotten into the coffers of Doe & Roe, 

 and they have gotten none of it. The world 

 is daily becoming more restive under the 

 slow but sure systems of commercial and 

 industrial manipulation — hence everything 

 must be moved by sensation, by cyclone, and 

 and by tornado. It is true, that as meteoro- 

 logical tornadoes work a purification of the 

 physical atmosphere, even so those relative 

 phenomena may be permitted in order to 

 purity the moral, the social and the commer- 

 cial or financial atmospheres ; but it illus- 

 trates a low condition of humanity, when 

 such violent means are necessary to its purifi- 

 cation. 



And now, the various political parties hav- 

 ing chosen their "standard-bearers" in the 

 pending contest, we may legitimately look for 

 political tornadoes. Two have already oc- 

 curred in the massive gathering it was deemed 

 necessary to convene, in order to carry out 

 the aims of individual selfhoods, under the 

 special pleiis of serving the country and its 

 constitution. 



Two men are set up for oflice Whose charac- 

 ters will be so blackened by the tornadoes of 

 abuse, before the ides of November next, that 

 unsophisticated humanity may well wonder 

 from what plutonian region they have been 

 raked up. 



It is difficult to comprehend the necessity of 

 such a course, but whatever may transpire 

 men cannot rule it out of the order of that 

 permissive Providence, which only suffers the 

 least evil to prevail without violating human 

 freedom. 



Men have thought and labored long and in- 

 tensely on the subjects of storms, cyclones, 

 hurricanes, tornadoes, and the various other 

 meteorological phenomena which have occur- 

 red at various times and places, without com- 

 ing to any definite conclusions as to the real 

 cause of these convulsions in the realms of 

 nature ; and the greatest obstacle to the solu- 

 tion of the problem has been in attempting 

 to confine causes, effects and ends to the nar- 

 row boundaries of the physical world. Phe- 

 nomena liave been set down as causes which 

 have been in themselves but mere effects, or 

 the media, or vehicle through which an 

 anterior cause has been visibly manifested as 

 a corelative effect. 



In contemplating the scenic surroundings 

 of our "first parents in paradise," as they 

 have been portrayed through the conception 

 of the historical artists, there is an immense 

 contrast between the before and after of their 

 notable expulsion. Before man's first diso- 

 bedience all was innocent, tranquil and en- 

 tirely subordinate to the will of tlie Infinite ; 

 but after that event how very changed, not 

 only the visage of poor humanity, but also the 

 very aspect of nature's domain. Fear, shame, 

 mental anxiety, insubordination and animal 

 ferocity, accompanied by elemental convul- 

 sion, characterized the scene. 



It is sufficient to say in this place, that so 

 long as there is .sinning in the natural world 

 there will also be sorrowing. So long as there 



are convulsion, tornadoes and cyclones in th^ 

 moral world they are likely to have an out- 

 ward manifestation in the physical world. If 

 these furnished no moral plane of influx they 

 could not injuriously ultimate themselves. 

 Perverse humanity furnishes the plane of their 

 moral influx, and their outer manifestation 

 will be in correspondence with their Inner 

 forces. But somehow the preconceptions of 

 poor humanity cannot or will not see nor' ac- 

 knowledge anything that lies beyond its physi- 

 cal vision. 



"THE FIRE WORM." 

 Th^s pest which has appeared in Westches- 

 ter county, N. Y., and is moving eastward is 

 thus described by a correspondent of the Sun. 

 — Countryside. 



"Tlie devastating creature is called the fire 

 worm, because the apple trees look as though 

 scorched by flames after the worm has left 

 them. The leaves are devoured down to the 

 little leafstalk and ribs, and these turn red. 

 Tiie young fruit withers and falls off. The 

 worms are black, smooth, and about three- 

 fourths of an inch in length. They crawl 

 like measuring worms. When the limb on 

 which they are feeding is jarred they drop 

 down in showers, spinning webs on which 

 they ascend if they are not further disturbed. 

 The worms made their first appearance for 

 this season two weeks ago. The trees that 

 they attack are crippled, not only for this 

 fall's crop, but for the next fall's, for they 

 will not recuperate in time to bear next 

 season. All that has been done so far is to 

 plough up the orchards in the hope of turning 

 under the worms and eggs, and lessoning the 

 swarm that will come out next spring. The 

 other day a man went out with an ox team to 

 plow among the trees. The worms drove 

 him out. The worms swarmed over him and 

 the oxen till they were black with them, and 

 he had to give it up. When a man stands under 

 a tree and jars a limb the worms shower down 

 upon him and almost stifle him. In the vil- 

 lages people walk in the middle of the streets 

 rather than encounter the swarms of worms 

 that are dangling from the apple trees which 

 overhang the side walks. At Pleasantville 

 on Sunday evening the people found the 

 worms had taken possession of the front of 

 the Presbyterian Church, covering the steps 

 and door with a black, wriggling coat. The 

 other day I saw Stephen Palmer, of Pleasant- 

 ville, sweeping the worms down from the 

 back side of his house. The house happened 

 to be in their path, and they went right up 

 the clap-boards and into the windows, and 

 would have filled the rooms up solid if he 

 hadn't discovered them in the beginning and 

 commenced fighting them. A curious thing 

 about the worms is that when they drop to 

 the ground they always start toward the east. 

 Eastward the star of tliese myriads takes its 

 way. I don't see how they can keep straight 

 on the points of the cempass after siiinning 

 round and round as they come down on their 

 webs ; but just as soon as one of these worms 

 touches the ground he strikes toward the east. 

 They attack nothing but apple trees. When 

 they begin crawling toward the east, they 

 continue till they find an apple tree in their 

 path. Up they go and devour every leaf on 



it, and then they drop down and resume 

 their eastward march." 



The foregoing description of the "Fire 

 Worm" we clip from the columns of the 

 Countryside, which credits it to the (N. Y.) 

 Sun — or rather a correspondent of the Sun — 

 and an intelligent, but somewhat profane 

 presence at our elbow, asks—" What tlie devil 

 is itV Hundreds of such paragraphs get 

 into the various publications of the country, 

 but they mean nothing practically, and in- 

 struct nobody, if they do not absolutely mis- 

 lead. The Chief of the Entomological Divi- 

 sion of the Department of Agriculture sends 

 out circulars of inquiry upon these subjects, 

 and it seems singular that the people who 

 suffer from infestations of these " black 

 worms " do not make an effort to know some- 

 thing about them themselves, instead of being 

 at the mercy of sensational correspondents of 

 uninformed editors and publishers. "They 

 crawl like a measuring-worm," seems to im- 

 ply that they are the " Canker-worm"— or 

 rather one of the canker-worms — for there 

 are two species ; one called the " Spring 

 canker-worm" {Anisopteryx vernata), and the 

 other the "Fall canker-worm" {Anisopteryx 

 2)ometana), both infesting the apple trees, 

 and neither of which would be hurt much by 

 "ploughing them down"— if such a thing 

 were at all likely— for that is just the condi- 

 tion they require in order to effect their trans- 

 formations, after they have completed their 

 worm-life ; and as to ploughing their eggs 

 down, that would be an impossibility, unless 

 the whole tree were also ploughed down. If 

 these worms were so exceedingly accessible as 

 the Sun^s lucid correspondent represents, the 

 citizens of Westchester county must be very 

 simple, or very indolent, if they could not 

 have found out some means to destroy them ; 

 for they are not so approachable in any of 

 their other forms as they are in the worm- 

 form. With little regard to truthfulness, or 

 to use, there is too much proueness on the 

 part of correspondents to create a sensation in 

 such cases. 



We quote the following from page 6, Ban- 

 duin Notes on Natural History (Providence, 

 R. I.), Vol. I, as being the deliverance of Dr. 

 W. O. Brown, at a meeting of the "Provi- 

 dence Franklin Society," held on the 16th of 

 last June. He also gave an instance of a man 

 in Johnstown saving his orchard from the 

 ravages of the "Canker-worm," by shower- 

 ing the trees with a mixture of Paris Green 

 and water, it being "perfectly eflective." 

 2'hat, or almost any other remedy would be 

 better than to stupidly attempt to fight the 

 insects with such "slow-coach" weapons as an 

 ox and plough. 



We might infer from the paper we have 

 quoted that Westchester county must be a 

 'sort of "Egypt," having no knowledge of the 

 ate Dr. Asa Fitch, who labored in the field 

 of entomology for more than thirty years in 

 New York State, and published many volumes 

 and papers on the life, habits, &c., of noxious 

 insects. Nor of Mr. Lintner, the present 

 State Entomologist ; nor of the Buflalo, nor 

 the Brooklyn Entomological clubs. Of course 

 we are not certain that the " Black-worm " 

 referred to is a "Canker-worm," but, from 

 the description and the fact that this worm 

 has been destructive on Long Island, and 



