Proceedings of tee Farmers' Club. 555 



taking a sharp knife and cutting off, little by little, from these 

 indentations, if you have good luck, you will find a little egg, about 

 as large around the small way as a period mark, and around the 

 other way perhaps a third larger. I did not succeed in detecting 

 the insect that laid the eggs, though I examined the knots morning, 

 noon, and night. I could not discover any eggs in the knots until 

 they were about as thick as a man's little finger. 



In about a week or ten days, the eggs commence hatching, and 

 at first, the grubs are very small, and more diflicult to discover 

 than were the eggs, but they have now fau-ly commenced in life, 

 and set up housekeeping for themselves, the woody substance of 

 the knot furnishing both food and shelter. 



The grub makes its way, directly to the cavity, in the center of 

 the knot, and by the time it arrives there, is perhaps three-eighths 

 of an inch in lengrth. 



Subsequent examinations convinced me, that the grubs perfect 

 their growth and leave the knots by eating through the outside, 

 and falling to the ground, soon after the time the fruit naturally 

 ripens, where they remain, and are transformed into insects, and 

 come forth in the spring to renew their depredations. 



I think the knots are commenced by a bite, or sting, of an insect, 

 which poisons the sap, arrests it in its flow to fonn the wood, leaves, 

 and fruit, and this poisoned sap forms the knot, which becomes the 

 breeding place, and food for the succeeding generation. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — This has been said many times, but there is 

 no evidence that the knots are made by the worm any more than 

 finding a horse in a barn is any proof that the horse built the barn. 

 The curculio will sting any part of a tree soft enough for him to 

 pierce. He goes to the young fruit mostly, but often deposits his 

 eggs in these black knots; but he does not make them. The 

 remedy for this disease is pruning. A well-trimmed cherry tree 

 will not have black knots. 



Mr. Wm. Lawton said his experience coincided with that of Mr. 

 Fuller. The remedy, or rather the preventive, of black knot is 

 the judicious use of the pruning knife. 



BEESWAX. 



Mr. James Church, Oswego county, N. Y., wants to know how 

 bees make wax. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith, of Boston. — Bees have the power of making 

 or secreting wax from their own bodies. They make it in the little 



