]4G 



THE LANCASTER FARMER 



[October, 



know and relish the fruit ? It is, however, 

 somewhat displaced as a popular edible, by 

 the "Everlasting Peanut," but is unrivaled 

 as an ingredient in modern fine confection- 

 eries. 



Perhaps of more commercial importance is 

 the " Pecan-nut," (usually pronounced in the 

 localities where they grow, " Pe-cawn,") but 

 it is not a native of Lancaster county. This 

 is the Carya oHvfeformis, of Nuttal, so-called 

 because tlie fruit is in the form of an olive. It 

 is abundant in some of the AVestern States, 

 esi)ecially in Indian and Illinois, and it is on 

 record, that at Terre Haute, In., trees occur 

 from 8U to 90 high. The fruit has a thinner 

 shell than the " shag-bark," and the kernel is 

 not divided by boney partitions. 



The " Thick-Shelled Hickory Nut," or 

 " Shellbark" {Carya sulcata) is also found in 

 Lancaster county, but it is more common 

 west of the AUeghenies. The fruit is very 

 large— about twice the size of the common 

 Shellbark— and altliough the shell is very 

 thick, tlie kernel is quite as delicious as that 

 of the alha. The tree grows very high— from 

 40 to 60 feet high, in some cases 80 feet. The 

 bark is also somewhat shaggy, in semi loose 

 narrow strips. It has however become rare 

 in tliis county, if it ever had been common — 

 indeed, we have not noticed one since the 

 days of our boyhood. 



The "Mockernut" {Carya tomentosa) veas 

 more frequently found in this county, but this 

 also is more abundant in the West and the 

 South. The fruit varies very much in size, 

 even on the same tree, being from one to two 

 inches in diameter, and the husk or hull is 

 very thick. The shell is also pretty thick, 

 and the kernel comparatively small, difficult 

 to extract, but the taste in some well de- 

 veloped nuts, is not much inferior to the 

 Shellbark. The bark is thick and rugged, 

 but not scaley. The wood is excellent fuel, 

 and also valuable for manufacturing purposes. 

 The labor of gathering these nuts in our boy- 

 hood, but poorly compensated us for our 

 trouble. There was too much lumber and too 

 little meat, after drying. 



The •' Pignut" hickory {Carya glabra) is as- 

 sociated with our earliest recollections of 

 nuts. The nuts of this species of hickory 

 vary somewhat in quality and shape, but one 

 notable tree of our boyhood bore nuts that 

 were not only very bitter to the taste,* but as 

 astringent as a green persimmon. This is the 

 C. pordna of Nuttal, but Torry's name has 

 priority. The tree grows very tall. Some 

 known to attain lOU feet in height. The 

 Ijark is moderatoly even, and the wood is very 

 tough and hard, but it makes good fuel. Both 

 the sliell of the nut, and the husk are moder- 

 ately thin. One tree ou the Duffy (Evans) 

 farm, half a mile from the bank of the Susque- 

 hana, north of Marietta, was very prolific — 

 yielding abundantly every year, but always 

 disappointing " us boys," for they looked so 

 fair that it was hard to realize that they were 

 totally worthless as an edible. 



There is, however, one nut that is bitterer 

 than the " Pignat," called by way of distinc- 

 tion the " Bitternut," {Carya amara) having 

 a very thin shell, a white nut, and .so very 

 bitter that pigs would not have anything to 

 do with it, whereas tliey would sometimes eat 

 pignuts, without any special ^hankering after 



them. This species of hickory has been con- 

 founded with the pignut, but we are not sure 

 that it occurs in this county, but is found in 

 abundance in Pennsylvania, along the valley 

 of the Ohio, and elsewhere in this State. 



In the Soutliern States, among the swamps 

 and rice ditches there grows a species of 

 hickory called the " Water Bitternut," 

 {Carya equatica,) that bears a small, angular, 

 compressed nut, with -a very tender, reddish 

 shell. Neither the fruit nor the timber are of 

 any special value. The tree attains to 30 or 

 40 feet in height, and the leaves, which are a 

 shining rich green on both sides, strongly re- 

 semble peach leaves. " Tliin-shelled hickory 

 nut" {Carya microcarpa), or "spurious shell- 

 bark." A large tree, 60 to 80 feet high ; bark 

 even and the trunk from 18 incihes to two feet 

 in diameter ; grows in moist woodlands from 

 Pennsylvania to Tennessee. Grows in Lan- 

 caster county. The nut is very edible, and in 

 our booyhood, when the trees were occasion- 

 ally found, we thought the nuts were veritable 

 shellbarks. These nuts all occur in varieties, 

 owing probably to varieties of soil, or whether 

 on bottoms or uplands. 



The hickories are nearly all infested by 

 various insects. The nuts are preyed upon by 

 species of " Snout-beetles " (Curculiorid,«). 

 The long horned Capicorn beetle {Clytus pic- 

 Uis) is very destructive to hickory timber and 

 has been known to destroy whole forests. The 

 hickory trees on the Wheatland farm— the 

 former residence of ex-President Buchanan, 

 and now owned by Mr. Geo. B. Wilson — are 

 now slowly passing away through the depre- 

 dations of this and other insects. Nothing 

 will now save the sound trees that still re- 

 main, but cutting down the infested ones. 

 Some of the trunks may yet make tolerable 

 timber, and the branches good fuel, but the 

 branchlets and twigs are badly infested by 

 small " Typographer-beetles " {Scolytidct), 

 and should be burned. 



On a late visit to the little wheatland 

 grove, we found many of the hickory trees in 

 a sad condition. An ax struck into the 

 trunks almost anywhere, and a chip taken off, 

 would reveal dozens of the larviB of the 

 "■Painted clytus,'''' as well as other wood- 

 boring insects. We also noticed the work of 

 the " Hickory tree Girdler " {Onciderus sin- 

 (julatus,) and of a " Pruner" doubtless a 

 species of Elaphideon {E.putator, or acogener). 

 We found the "Pigeon Tremex." {Tremex 

 coiomba) with its ovipositor entered into the 

 trunk of a hickory tree, in the act of deposit- 

 ing her eggs on the 'iTth of September, the 

 first knowledge we had of its attacking 

 hickory, although we were aware that it de- 

 posited its eggs in the trunks of the elms, the 

 buttonwood, and also the pine. This insect 

 belongs to the Order Hymenoptbra, which 

 includes the sawflies, bees, wasps, hornets, 

 etc., whilst tho.se above alluded to, belong to 

 the Order Coleoptera, which includes the 

 " beetles " of various families. 



We also found a flat, black, shiney "mimic 

 beetle" {Hololepta incqualus) and an allied 

 species of Suprinus, under the bark of one of 

 the trees. We have often found these insects 

 in decayed vegetable matter, under loose 

 bark, and in rotten wood. We do not think 

 they attack live timber,but when trees become 

 enervated through the attacks of other depre- 



dators, many other species find them proper 

 places in which to propagate their species. 

 Some woodboring insects prefer living Umber, 

 others only that which is dead. For instance 

 the " Hickory tree girdles," makes a deep 

 groove around the entire branch, and deposits 

 its eggs above the groove. The branch so 

 girdled dies, and the larvie feed on the dead 

 branches, which are subsequently broken off 

 by the winds. This is also the case with the 

 "Oak tree pruner" {Elaphideon putator), but 

 the latter cuts off the branch from the inside 

 instead of the outside. We have collected 

 and taken home scores of branchlets found on 

 the ground containing larvse, from which the 

 beetles were subsequently evolved. This 

 pruning is sometimes beneficial to the trees ; 

 but if it is deemed injurious, the remedy is to 

 gather the branches and make a bonfire of 

 them. 



THE CIGARETTE "WEEVIL." 

 On the 3d inst., Mr. Wm. Welchans sub- 

 mitted to our examination a package contain- 

 ing twenty cigarettes, and at the same time 

 called our attention to an article in the Phila- 

 adelphia Times, on the insects infesting manu- 

 factured tobacco, and especially the ciga- 

 rette and the fine chewing tobacco. Out 

 of the twenty cigarettes, fourteen were in- 

 fested by a small light-brown coleoptuous 

 insect, five m win length, including the head, 

 thorax and abdomen, and about one m m in 

 diameter. Including the mature insects, the 

 lai-vje and the pupa;, the average number of 

 insects in each cigarette was six ; although, 

 judging from the number of perforations in 

 paper wrappers, from three to five beetles 

 must have escaped from each of them before 

 they came into our possession. We may there- 

 fore conclude that each cigarette contained 

 ten of these destructive little pests, 

 which would amount to 140 in each package. 

 The larvoe vary in size, the largest being six 

 m m in length, and two in diameter. The 

 pupa is a little larger than the beetle ; in 

 which thp rudimental head, thorax, wing- 

 covers, feet, and two conspicuous black eyes 

 are distinctly visible. The larvre is always 

 bent crescent shaped ; has six pectoral feet, 

 and the hind end of the abdomen somewhat 

 enlarged, resembling a melolonthon larvje(grub 

 worm) in miniature. Both the larva and the 

 pupa are of a yellowish butter color, and the 

 former moves very slowly and indifferently 

 on a plain surface. The case, no doubt, is 

 bad enough ; but we opine that the articles 

 on the subject which appear in the Times are 

 strongly sensational. To begin with: "Half 

 the size of a fly" conveys no idea of its size. 

 We know of flies that are two inches in 

 length. Nor has it a "sharp pointed head," 

 but on the contrary a blunt, retractile head, 

 which, when not extended while rnnning, is 

 drawn well under the thorax. Perhaps the 

 above character was given it to approximate 

 it to a "weevil," which it is not. Weevils 

 are snout-beetles, and belong to the family 

 Curculionido}, but this insect is evidently a 

 Ptinidcr. and is allied to the "death-watch 

 beetles" — very probably belongs to the genus 

 Anobium— or near to it. (Perhaps it may be 

 allowable to call this insect a weevil, in the 

 convenient sense in which the term is usually 

 applied to all destructive small insects, of 

 which we do not know the specific names.) 



