1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



357 



tribute specimens of the Fruits best adapted to 

 their respective districts — to furnish descriptions 

 of the same, their mode of cultivation, and to com- 

 municate whatever may aid in promoting the ob- 

 jects of the Society and the science of American 

 Pomoh>gy. 



Each "contributor is requested to come prepared 

 ■with a complete list of his collection, and to pre- 

 sent the same with his Fruits, that a Report of all 

 the varieties entered may bo submitted to the 

 meeting as soon as practicable. 



All persons desirous of becoming members, can 

 remit the admission fee to Thomas P. James, 

 Esq., Philadelphia, or the President, at Boston, 

 ■who will furnish them Avith the Transactions of the 

 Society. Life Membership, Ten Dollars ; Bienni- 

 al, Two Dollars. 



Packages of Fruits maybe addressed as follows : 

 "Ameiucax PoMOLOGiCAL SociEiT, care of Mass. 

 Hort. Society, Boston, Mass." 



'^L\RS^ALL P. Wilder, President. 



Thomas W. Field, Secretary. 



Fur the New England Farmer. 

 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION, 

 BY JUDGE FRENCH. 



In 1837 a Commission for the Zoological and 

 Botanical Survey of Massachusetts was ordered 

 by the General Court. To Dr. Thaddeus William 

 Harris was assigned the department of Lisects, 

 and his report was first published in 1841, at the 

 expense of the State. In 18-52, the first edition 

 having been exhausted, a second was published, 

 under the direction of the author, enlarged and 

 improved by him, and in 1859, by a resolve of the 

 Legislature, the Secretary of the Board of Agri- 

 culture was directed to issue a third edition, Avith 

 additions and with illustrations which were want- 

 ing in the former editions. 



We have before us, as the result, perhaps the 

 most perfect and reliable work of the kind ever 

 published. In point of mere mechanical execu- 

 tion, paper, engraving, printing and binding, the 

 book is said, by competent judges, to be equal, if 

 not superior, to any other volume ever published 

 in America. Indeed, the State edition, with its 

 tinted paper and embossed cover, seems designed 

 rather for the parlor table, than the hard hands 

 of the farmer. 



The hundreds of wood and steel engravings, 

 now first published, have been executed under the 

 direction of Prof. Agassiz, and by him carefully 

 compared with living specimens, and Mr. Secre- 

 tary Flint has availed himself of the first talent 

 in the country to make the work honorable to the 

 State. 



The publishers, Crosby & Nichols, have re- 

 cently issued an edition less expensive than the 

 first, from the same plates, with colored illustra- 

 tions, and in all respects like the other, except in 

 the cost of paper and binding. This edition is 



pnlri !»t ^^-^ r<f\ o r.r>rnr nnri aUVirviiorli nnlv of nhnnt 



half the cost of the State edition, is as elegant a 

 volume as any man ought to make common use of. 



HOW MANY INSECTS THERE ARE. 



An English entomologist has stated that on an 

 average there are six distinct species of insects to 

 one species of plants. Mr. Harris thinks there 

 are four to one in America, and that as there are 

 1200 flowering plants in ^Massachusetts, it is fan- 

 to estimate 4800 different species of insects in 

 this State, This will furnish excuse enough for 

 the omission, to any reader, who shall find some 

 specimen of an insect which has not sat for its 

 portrait in this collection. Mr. Harris modestly 

 entitled his work a treatise on sovie of the in- 

 sects injurious to vegetation, and the attempt has 

 been made throughout to inform the reader of 

 tlie habits of such as are most common and most 

 destructive. Such a work is invaluable to the 

 farmer and fruit-grower. We can only arrive at 

 the means to defend ourselves against such pests 

 as the canker ■v\-orm, the curculio and the wheat 

 flies, by carefully studying their habits and meth- 

 ods of reproduction, and with all that art and sci- 

 ence can do for us, we shall always find warfare 

 with those enemies to be a condition of success. 



PROPENSITY TO DESTROY EACH OTHER. 



Mr. H. W. Beecher said, when some one desired 

 some solution of the doctrine of natural depravi- 

 ty, that it was of less importance to know how 

 sin got into the world, than how to get it out ; 

 that if a man saw a pig in his garden, his first 

 business was to drive him out, and not to sit down 

 and speculate on the question of how he got there. 

 Why all animals were created with a propensity 

 to bite, and worry, and devour other animals, is 

 not very plain, but the fact is manifest that if, in 

 Adam's fall, we sinned all, the beasts and insects 

 shared in the general wreck. The fact that the 

 birds devour the insects, and that some insects, 

 harmless to us, are destructive enemies of our 

 ■worst foes, is of practical daily use, and one of 

 the great problems in life is to know how to dis- 

 tinguish friends from foes. That crows pull up 

 corn, and that robins eat cherries, are uni)leasant 

 circumstances to some of us, but whether these 

 birds do not earn their living by devouring nox- 

 ious insects and worms is another question. We 

 have seen a man shoot a whole brood of orioles 

 from nests that had hung on the old elm by the 

 house for a generation, because they destroyed 

 his green peas. He said they did it solely for 

 mischief, for they merely shelled out the peas and 

 left them. We thought if he knew as ■well as we 

 did how many pea grubs he ate with his peas, and 

 that the orioles only wanted the grubs, he would 

 be willing the poor birds should have their share 

 of them. 



Not nnlv do birds rlps^^vo'^' inipftq. bnt evprv in- 



