No. 15L] 51? 



Evening is the time for insect jubilees. Nineteen-twentieths of 

 the beetle tribe, and many other insects commit their depredations 

 then. In ancient times fires were made on the highlands north of 

 Egypt to destroy the armies of locusts. This being supposed a fool- 

 ish practice, was discontinued, and Egypt again suffered the loss of 

 her crops. Fires made in evening have a happy effect; insects rush 

 into it drawn by the light I know a man whose pippin orchard 

 was alniost destroyed for two years by canker worms; he made eve- 

 ning fires in the orchard, which destroyed the millers which pio- 

 duced the worm, and then had good fruit, I suggest the making 

 fires, with proper care, in orchards as soon as insects appear, in eve- 

 nings. And I add plow the ground well, late in fall in cold weather; 

 it will turn out millions of larvae to perish by cold. Some say turn 

 in hogs! that has done well; they eat up the fallen fruit and insects 

 in them. 



There is a prodigious increase this year of the insects that sting 

 the leaves of the apple, very similar to the peach. 



• 

 Apple trees should be well scraped in winter; millions of eggs 



and larvae under the rough bark will be killed by it. Leave cater- 

 pillars undisturbed and each produces a miller or butterfly to lay 

 more eggs. The nests of these caterpillars are easily destroyed, and 

 by so doing you confer a blessing on all your neighbors as well as 

 on yourself. 



When I see (as I have) a man setting down, looking in despair 

 at the worm nests in his trees, I feel as if I should be glad to give 

 him a galvanic shock! co arouse him to his duty to his neighbor and 

 himself. He might just as properly sit still and see his neighbors' 

 cattle, or his own, breaking into his corn fiekl, without making an 

 effort to turn them out. Last year I destroyed some twenty thousand 

 of these worms' nest in ray orchards. In my neighborhood are wild 

 cherry trees, which are full of these nests, so that when I get a new 

 supply on my place I owe it to this neighbor as well as to negligent 

 farmers. 



All our agricultural societies and clubs ought to take up this in- 

 sect question. There is a curious excrescence on our wild sweet briar, 

 made by some insect longed within. The English white hawthorn 

 is attacked; here is a branch with the young haws upon it, ruined, 

 you see, probably by the same insect which stings the quince tree. 

 I believe I have discovered the larvae of this insect, but am not yet 

 positive of it. 



