STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 27 



which are of a deep orange color, are deposited on the underside 

 of the leaves of the potato, in patches of thirty or forty, and hatch 

 in about a week, when they begin their work of destruction. In 

 about a fortnight, the larvas attain their full growth, cease feed- 

 ing, and make their way down into the ground, where they pass 

 the pupa state, from which, in about ten days, the perfect beetles 

 appear. In about seven days after maturity the beetles pair, and 

 the females lay a batch of eggs each day for about forty days. 

 Each female was estimated b}' Dr. Shimer of Illinois, to lay, on an 

 average, about seven hundred eggs. In the western States, there 

 are three broods a year, the last brood remaining under the ground 

 all winter, and coming out in the spring as perfect beetles. If we 

 take Dr. Shimer's estimates of seven hundred eggs from each 

 female, and three broods a year, and supposing one-third of the 

 eggs to produce females which in turn would yield each seven 

 hundred eggs, we should obtain in the course of one season from 

 one pair of insects, the enormous number of over thirty-eight 

 millions of larvae, and when we consider how voracious they are, 

 we may well tremble for our potato crops, when once this pest 

 becomes fairly established among us. There is nothing for us to 

 do now, so far as I know, but to provide ourselves with the usual 

 remedy, Paris-green, and wage war with this prolific foe when he 

 makes his advent among our potatoes. There are various ways 

 of applying the Paris-green, perhaps the most approved is to dust 

 it on the vines when they are wet with dew in the morning. As 

 the Paris-green is very poisonous, it should be used with the 

 utmost care. For dusting the vines it should be intimately mixed 

 with ten to twelve parts of flour. It may also be applied by 

 means of a sprinkler, using one table-spoonful of Paris-green to 

 one pailful of water. It must be frequently stirred up else the 

 Paris-green will sink to the bottom of the pail, as it is not soluble 

 in water. 



It has been given as the opinion of an eminent entomologist, 

 that so long as nature alone is operating, it very rarely, or per- 

 haps never occurs, that vegetation is extensively damaged by 

 insects or other animals. But when the natural relations are 

 altered by man, as the clearing away of forests, the extending of 

 the culture of certain crops over wide areas, even into the regions 

 occupied by certain noxious insects, these insects are multiplied 

 to excess, and extended far beyond their original habitats. The 

 Colorado potato beetle is an illustration of this. This insect occu- 



