Proceedings of the Farmers' Club, 435 



biMs befoi'e us in all directions, that at last, the insects have taken 

 the place of the birds, and destroyed the balance. One gallon of 

 black molasses, unfit for anything else, mixed with water and placed 

 in old vessels will suffice for a farm from early spring till fall, answer- 

 ing from week to week, only recpiiring to have the moths thrown 

 out ; to be removed or kept covered by day, to preserve from bees, 

 and to be filled up and kept sweet, as it gradually wastes or too 

 greatly ferments. The same sweetened water, on plates, with cobalt, 

 ratsbane, or anything simihir in it, will poison the moths. But there 

 is still a more universal nieans, for nature has made every insect a 

 fire-worsliipper. Little fii'es in gardens and orchards at early twilight, 

 burning five, ten, or fifteen minutes, will attract and consume perfect 

 swarms of moths, beetles, bugs, and curculios, and more directly save 

 fruit than an3'thing else. Light wood obtained and split fine before- 

 hand, enough for the whole season, or flat-bottomed tin lamps, like 

 those of the " campaign torches," will be mone}' at 100 per cent in 

 every man's pocket, wlio owns either garden or orchard. And pick- 

 ing up and boiling all fallen fruit, to kill the worms in it, will make 

 two or three hundred to one less insects next year. These means 

 forestall all ordinary ones, as hand-picking, sprinkling with oil, cut- 

 ting out borers, destroying nests on trees, toads, turtles, chickens, 

 ducks, that eat every tomato worm, and turkeys that gobble 

 the new potato bug of the west, killing the parents and preventing 

 increase, is beginning at the beginning, and striking at the root. The 

 means are literally so many, that they become superfluous ; half of 

 them will do ; what we do not kill in one way Ave shall in anotlier. 

 "We might have known that we should find means, because it would 

 become a necessity, and necessity is that which has done everything 

 else. It is that which has given us tlie plow, which we should never 

 have had if trees had borne bread ; it is that which has given us the 

 locomotive, which we never should have had if men had been able to 

 fly, and it is that which has given us the cotton-gin, spinning jenny, 

 and sewing machine, and which would, could wood and coal disap- 

 pear, give us fire from water. So, when it becomes necessary, it is 

 easy to find ways to kill insects. 



Wisconsin Land. 

 Mr. S. B. French, Menomonee, Dunn county, Wisconsin. — The 

 northwestern part of this State is new and just settling up, and it has 

 a large amount of good prairie and timber land, and with a climate 



