114 TKUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. 



tion of poison for their protection, as all the first leaves 

 will be cast oif long before maturity, and the small 

 amount that might lodge on the stem would be removed 

 by rain. 



Harris says that grasshoppers are attacked by certain 

 thread-like, brown, or blackish worms (Filaria), and are 

 infested by little red mites (Ocypete), of which ten or a 

 dozen may be found adhering to the body beneath the 

 wings. 



Probably moles and ground beetles, and their larvae 

 may destroy the eggs, while the crow and a few other 

 birds, and domestic poultry, feed upon the insect. 



Grasshoppers might be captured, as in France and 

 elsewhere, by means of cloth traps, drawn across the 

 fields, but such methods, without concert of action 

 among farmers, are useless, and the use of kerosene on 

 sheet-iron pans drawn over the field as recommended in 

 the First Report of the United States Entomological 

 Commission is, by all odds, the most satisfactory. 



Grasshoppers are not apt to fly far from harboring 

 grass or weeds; I avail myself of this habit, and locate my 

 cabbage-seed beds in the middle of an open field, gen- 

 erally undergoing preparation at the time for oats. If 

 the grain is up simultaneously with the cabbages, the 

 young blades, while affording food, will not be sufficiently 

 thick to furnish a harbor around the beds. 



CKICKETS (A chetidcc. ) 



Unlike the tree-cricket ((Ecantlius niveus) which in- 

 jures fruit trees, the several kinds of crickets depredat- 

 ing upon the crops of the truck-farmer live upon the 

 ground, harboring under low herbage and grass. They 

 pass the winter at the South in the egg and in the per- 

 fect state; the female laying numerous eggs in the ground 

 at the approach of winter, which hatch out in the spring. 

 They abound particularly near the sea coast, where at 



