PROCEEDINGS OF THE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 619 



much of these fruits will also fail; but tli(?ie are some good apples that 

 have been saved. This is a brauch of a very fine kind of Fi-ench cherries 

 that have been destroyed in his neighborhood this season. The apple trees 

 this year, of wliich we have here a specimen, at one time were in this con- 

 dition. On examining closely the loaves, the aphis, that scourge of the 

 rose bush, was found there, and their destruction of the early leaves has 

 diminished the crop very materially. Here are two branches of the apple 

 tree, and they all present this appearance. This is due to the ravages of 

 the well-known canker worm. In New England nearly all the leaves of 

 the early trees have sullered from them; but the worms have since fallen to 

 the ground, as this season there were more leaves than the worms wanted. 



The aphis, which is the most universal of insects, and one that increases 

 the most of an}', has an enemy in the lady-bug. You can scarcely take up 

 a bud but you will find some of these bugs in search of the aphis. He had 

 sometimes fed these lady-bugs with the aphis placed on the point of a 

 knife, and this season he was enabled to discover that these insects have 

 a particular fancy for the snowball flower. When this flower does not 

 flourish, if the leaves are examined, they will be found to be perfectly alive 

 with the aphis. There is a prevailing opinion that the different color of 

 these insects is owing to the food they eat; but microscopic examinations 

 showed them to be of different species. Birds are very fond of them, and 

 I have known of an instance where the snowball appeared to be almost 

 entirely destroyed, when the birds came, and they picked off all the insects, 

 and after tliat tliej^ flourished very luxuriantly. The birds that feed on 

 these insects are very numerous; all those charming birds that remain 

 with us but a few days, and then go further north, such as the warbler, 

 oriole and cedar bird, are their enemies. If our public parks are visited, 

 the shrill notes of the cedar bird are heard. They are great friends to us 

 in destroying these insects. 



He had here, in this bottle, some three or four specimens of the curculio, 

 that enemy of the fruits of our country. He did not know of many bugs or 

 birds that fed on them, but he found that the oriole does, and they are 

 probably the food of those kinds of birds that feed on beetles. 



Mr. Wm. R. Prince then read the following: 



The grass specimens sent to the Society by Mrs. Mary Treat, of Iowa, are: 



Hierochloa horealis, Seneca grass or Sweet Summer grass, described by 

 Torrey & Gray, and in Eaton's Manual of Botany. It is perennial, and 

 found abundantly in the Newark and Hackensack meadows, in the environs 

 of Seneca lake, and in many localities in the Western States. It is 

 remarkable for its sweet and pleasant odor. It is a native, creeping 

 species, and spreads rapidly. In the eastern hemisphere, however, they 

 possess a grass of a distinct genus, which presents a counterpart of our 

 own Seneca grass, as to character. 



The Anthoxantum odoratum, or Sweet scented Vernal grass, has a 

 similar sweet and agreeable perfume. It is a native of the northern coun- 

 tries of Europe, and for the simple circumstance that it is an exotic and 

 far-fetched, it is much cultivated in the flower borders of our gardens, 

 while acres of a native grass, of a similar and in some respects of a supe- 



