proceedings of the farmers' club. 119 



Locusts and other Insects. 



Mr. J. H. Arnold, near Salem, Henry Co., Iowa, writes: "A few words 

 to the American Institute Farmers' Club. First, about locusts. In a late re- 

 port Dr. Trimble says, the}- eat nothing- above ground. And in the notices 

 of locusts in the newspapers generally, so far as I have observed, the idea 

 of their eating nothing seems to be admitted. Now, as this is locust year 

 in a large district in the Ohio Valley, the fact that they do eat is easily 

 ascertained by view. They settle on the body and large limbs of apple 

 trees, and probably most all other trees,"~and penetrate the bark with their 

 bills, or proboscis, and become so intently engaged that you may put your 

 finger on them; at one view hundreds may be seen with their heads down 

 tight on the bark and their bills inserted. Now about the loup-worm, 

 (called canker worm in this vicinit}'), the greatest orchard pest in S. B. 

 Iowa. They hatch out in this latitude about 1st of May, and continue 

 about a month, and then descend to the earth, where they lay dormant till 

 next spring. To exterminate them, plow them under, and very few will 

 ever get out. If you cannot plow your orchard, the next best I know of 

 is, when the frost is coming out of the ground in spring, to tie paper 

 around the trees and brush on it an adhesive mixture of oil and rosin. 

 This will catch the female mot (that cannot fly), as it ascends the tree. 

 Some will, however, crawl over and get up. Many other means are prac- 

 ticed, but it requires much attention and perseverance to exterminate 

 them in any other way than by plowing. The apple tree borer, I think, 

 is the progeny of a brown bug about three-fourths of an inch in length 

 (commonly called snapping bug, because if laid on its back it will right 

 itself by a peculiar snap). They appear about 1st of June, and will 

 secrete themselves under any wrapper near the root of the tree, and may 

 be killed. The locust borer is the progeny of a green bug, spotted with 

 black, about an inch in length. They appear in September, and we know 

 of no way to exterminate them. Whitewash is only a slight mitigation. 

 They entirely destroy our locust groves, intended for fence posts. An 

 easy and effectual remedy for this would be worth thousand of dollars to 

 Iowa. I am a practical farmer, and like most others are trying the willow 

 humbug." 



Prof. Mapes. — It may not injure trees to put an adhesive mixture upon 

 paper around them, but any substance of that kind, whitewash included, 

 applied to the bark is injurious. On the contrary, the caustic soda-wash 

 is beneficial, not only to kill all insects that harbor in the bark, but to 

 make the bark smooth. Perhaps it would benefit the locust trees as well 

 as fruit trees. 



Dr. Trimble. — The closest observers are convinced that locusts do not 

 eat anything after thc}^ emerge Irom their long confinement in the earth. 

 I wish the writer of this letter would send us some millers of the loup- 

 worm of Iowa, and let us see whether they are the same as those which 

 have become such a pest in this city and Brooklyn, and which I find aro 

 indentical with those in Philadelphia. I found there that poultry was 

 used to some extent to destroy the worms, and it suggested the idea of 

 putting a large number of fowls in Union Square, and then shaking down 



