382 



NEW ENGLAND EARMEE. 



Afg. 



as pickled hay ! It is supposed that it induces 

 scours in stock, and often pi-oves quite injurious 

 to their general health. It is a wasteful practice 

 to get in hay half cured, and depend upon salt to 

 save it. It would be better economy to purchase 

 hay caps, and with their aid secure the hay in 

 perfect condition. 



For the Neiu England Farmer. 



PEOGRESS IN NATUBAIj HISTOBY. 



I noticed in a late connmunication over the signa- 

 ture of "Farmer," some excellent ideas, but many 

 uncandid sneers at students of natural history, who 

 endeavor to benefit others by imparting the infor- 

 mation they have gained through careful observa- 

 tion and long experience. While there are num- 

 bers of empirics and superficial writers on these 

 subjects, we are not "ah uno disce(rc) omnes.'" If 

 the farmer %oill not, thi'ough indolence or disincli- 

 nation, or cannot, from want of time or incapacity, 

 study the works of nature himself, he must be at 

 the mercy of every ignorant pretender who has 

 scarcely learned, as your correspondent says, "to 

 distinguish a croM' from a robin, or a hawk from a 

 dove, a grasshopper from a housefly, a butterfly 

 from a mosquito," &c. But if, in the long winter 

 evenings, instead of yawning away the hours from 

 supper till bediime, or spending them at the vil- 

 lage tavern, he would take up a simple course of 

 study, on the subject, for instance, of insects — a 

 branch which is most intimately connected with 

 his pursuits — he would find himself amply repaid. 

 If he Mere to learn the characteristic distinctions 

 between a beetle and a fly, he would not, as do 

 many of our otherwise intelligent farmers, assever- 

 ate, with solemn sincerity, that the "rose bug," 

 towards the end of the summer, sheds its wings, 

 and deserts its foi-mer pasture of the leaves and 

 flowers, becomes a hairy, yellow dungfly, and fre- 

 quents manure heaps for the remainder of the sea- 

 son. If he were assured that the beautiful painted 

 butterfly Mhich he cautions his children not to 

 catch nor injure, was a deadlier magazine of de- 

 struction to his kitchen garden than ever were can- 

 ister, grajie or shrapnel to the advancing column, 

 or that the little round red beetles, not larger than 

 a half pea, that he finds "eating up" his grain 

 crops, were doing more in one day to rid liim of 

 the real destroyer, the plant-lice, than he, in spite 

 of his size and strength, could accomplish in a 

 week, would he not regard the information as a 

 valualjle acquisition, even at the expense of an 

 hour's hard study ? 



"Farmer" asks, "what help does the farmer, well 

 versed in entomology, derive therefrom on a visi- 

 tation of the caterpillar, the palmer-worm, the 

 canker-worm, or the army-worm, over his unread 

 neighbor ?" If he is truly "well versed" in ento- 

 mology, he will be able to check, if not prevent 

 their ravages, by attacking them at their weakest 

 points. If he sees, on the twigs of his apple trees, 

 little brown clusters of eggs, in the fall and winter, 

 or if, from the middle of June to the 10th of July, 

 he finds on his fences, and beneath the caves and 

 clap-boards of his house and barn, oval cocoons, 

 sprinkled with a sulphurous powder, he will pick 

 them ofl", and crush them under foot ; then ho can 

 see, the next spring, his apple-trees put out their 



green leaves, and cover themselres with their 

 milky blossoms, without apprehension, and will 

 have no "visitation," while his uninformed neigh- 

 bors all around him are complaining of their van- 

 ished foliage whose place is poorly supplied by the 

 filthy, whited sepulchres of the "web-worm." 



It does not follow, by any means, because a "far- 

 mer cannot systematically name birds, quadrupeds, 

 reptiles, and insects, coming under his observation, 

 that he knows nothing about them," but he is apt 

 to jump at conclusions, which are often totally er- 

 roneous, and the results of his action in the prem- 

 ises is often productive of irreparable injmy, as he 

 afterward experiences. A superficial observation 

 is no less a dangerous thing than a little knowl- 

 edge. A. sees a bird di'illing holes in his trees j 

 he shoots him, of course, and says to himself, "I 

 have done a good job; he was sucking the sap." 

 So pleased is he with the knowledge he has gained, 

 that he continues the practice, and in a year or 

 two, finds his trees dying, in spite of the vigilant 

 warfare he keeps up against their supposed de- 

 stroyers ; and when he cuts them down for firewood, 

 he exposes a wonderful number of holes and bur- 

 rows in the body of the trunk, but none tlirough 

 the bark, excavated by the indefatigable wood- 

 pecker in search of his rightful prey, the borer. 

 Now, even if A. had never opened a book on the 

 subject, nor been informed by any learned D. D.-, 

 but had merely canied his observations a little far- 

 ther, and had opened the body of the first bird he 

 had shot, the grubs of the boring beetle, and the 

 absence of sap, would have shown the folly of 

 jumping at a conclusion without more facts to sup- 

 port it. B. would laugh in your face, if you should 

 recommend him to kill all his cattle, because they 

 occasionally break into his cornfield, or kitchen 

 garden, and eat, trample and destroy a part of his 

 crops ; but at the same time he will exterminate 

 the crows, wlien corn has been planted, or the rob- 

 ins, when strawben-ies and cherries are ripening, 

 because these season their meal of cutworms with a 

 kernel of corn, or he lias heard some one say that 

 they sucked eggs and killed young birds ; while 

 the others, after bringing up their yomig brood 

 upon injurious caterpillars, at the rate of fifty to 

 a hundred per diem, think it no harm to take a few 

 cherries from the overloaded boughs, to vary their 

 repast. C.'s entomological lore consists of the 

 apotliegm — "insects are injurious to agriculture." 

 Accordingly, he proceeds to burn, slay and destroy 

 indiscriminately fi-iends and foes, the marauding 

 caterpillars, the beetles of the wire worm, the moths 

 and butterflies, together with the dragon flies, 

 the wasps, ichneimions and ground beetles ; and 

 that — ^by illustrious precedent — reminds me of a 

 little story which was related in my heai'ing by 



Prof. , at a meeting of the Essex Institute, 



and although I cannot give it the inimitable flavor 

 of his version, I will do my best. A certain min- 

 ister, who mingled his studies of Divine Revela- 

 tion with researches into the book of Nature, was 

 settled somewhere "down east," and continuing 

 his investigations as usual, was surprised in his 

 study by a deputation of wiseacres from his con- 

 gregation, who after a series of hems and haws, 

 opened the subject through their ringleader as 



follows : — "Mr. , the people think you spend a 



good (leal of time in poking round the fields and 

 catching hiKjs and butterflies, that would be better 

 employed in your studies, or in going round doing 



