260 Transactions of the American Institute. 



of Egypt, more than of our own Yankeeland. The chief advantage 

 Dakota has over her sister Territories and States is that there are and 

 can be no speculators' lands. None of Dakota's soil can be obtained 

 from government except by homestead and pre-emption ; no wide 

 wastes of speculative land here surround the frontier settler, as in 

 most of the Western States. But even this excellence has operated 

 against Dakota's settlement, for as no one had land to sell, its advan- 

 tages were unheralded and unpuffed by " disinterested " newspaper 

 correspondents or agents of colonies ; while those of less favored sec- 

 tions, because advertised, are known and sold, second-hand, at many 

 times the government price, to settlers and colonists. Of the parti- 

 cular part of Dakota that is most desirable, of course " there is no 

 place like home," and my preference is for the valley of the Ver- 

 milion, where is located the claim of the subscriber. There we have 

 a (to us) beautiful mingling of valley, bluff and upland, well watered 

 and fertile. Government land may be had bordering the stream. 

 Two grist-mills are to be built on or near what is now government 

 land, and a cheese factory is hoped for. I will be happy to answer 

 any letters of inquiry addressed to me at Elk Point, Dakota. 



Pakis-gkeen foe the Potato Bug. 

 The secretary, in reply to several correspondents, submitted the 

 following facts, which, he stated, were condensed from an article by 

 Mr. Sanborn Tenney, of "Williams College, contributed to the Ameri- 

 can Naturalist. The article described a visit to James Hudson, of 

 ISTiles, Michigan. In April, 1S70, Mr. Hudson, in ploughing his 

 fields, ploughed up the full-grown beetles, and they walked about, 

 being very lively. He planted early rose potatoes about the 13th of 

 April, and as soon as they were fairly up the beetles commenced their 

 attacks upon them. He began to kill them by squeezing them between 

 two paddles, going over the ground daily, but apparently without 

 checking them. He then mixed paris-green with ashes and sprinkled 

 the mixture on a dozen rows, the vines at this time being a foot high 

 and from these rows he secured a fair crop of potatoes. Where the 

 mixture was not sprinkled the bugs ate all the leaves, and in many 

 cases they ate the stalks to a considerable extent. They now began 

 on a new field hitherto untouched, appearing in such numbers as 

 almost literally to cover both the leaves and the stalks. They were 

 so numerous that in less than an hour one man gathered about twenty 

 quarts of them. The beetles swept right through this field, going at 

 the rate of about ten or twenty rods in a week. Their yellowish eggs 



