270 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



perience of each may teach others, who need the effect of just such letters as 

 this to set them gohig. 



6. Yes. At least he who received and read, and reports this letter, will 

 take time to read others, and provoke discussion, so long as it will tend to 

 make one flower blossom where none blossomed before. 



Plant Lice. 



Mr. R. T. Ostrander, Geneva, Wis , reiterates the opinion that the aphides 

 or plant lice are nothing but infant ants. 



Doctor Trimble — Such an idea as this, that the aphides are the young of 

 pismires, would be entirely too contemptible for us to notice, if it was not 

 for the fact that such teaching may cause children to imbibe the idea that 

 what he says is true. If any one will carefully watch these little insects 

 he wull see them propagating their own species instead of being propa- 

 gated by ants. He will also see them change their coats, just as several other 

 animals do, and he will also learn why the ants are present where there is 

 a colony of aphides. They exude a very minute drop of sweet liquid, 

 which the ants are fond of, and on account of which they have been called 

 the ant's cows. For the ants pass around among the aphides and touch 

 them gentl}'', upon which the little insects give forth the food that the ants 

 are after, and this is called "milking their cows." You might as well sup- 

 pose that a snake's eggs would produce birds, as that these little insects 

 are the infant pismires. It is very easy to learn the truth ; but perhaps it 

 is easier to assert a very foolish lie ; we hope nobody will believe this one, 



CORN-STALK CuTTERS. 



Mr. John Atkinson, Bethany, Brooke Co., W. Va., wants Mr. Carpenter 

 "to say where the corrugated rollers, with which he chaffs his corn-cut 

 fodder, are to be had." 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter answers, in any of the agricultural warehouses of 

 this city. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — And probabl^^ in almost any other city. 



Improved Grain Drills. 



Mr. James Green, writes from Kennett Square, Pa., that he has made an 

 improvement in grain drills, and "that he is too poor to advertise it.'' 

 There have been a great many poor mechanics made rich by advertising. 

 If he has made a real improvement, and will take a sensible course to 

 make it known, we will guarantee that he will not always write himself 

 down "a poor merchanic." 



The Meat Rations of the People of New York. 



Mr. T. C. Peters, Darien, New York, says : 



" A close study of the tables of receipts of butchers' animals in New 

 York, and several years' observation, satisfy me that the annual consump- 

 tion of butchers' meat is a very good criterion for judging of the density of 

 population around the markets thus supplied. 



