VOL. 2. 



ST. LOUIS, MO., NOVEMBER, 1869. 



NO. 2. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 

 R. F. S"rXJI3LE~5r <te CO., 



104 OLIVE STREET, ST. LOUIS. 



vo dollars per annum in sulvunce. 



EDITORS : 



BENJ. D. WALSH Kock Island, 111. 



CHAS. V. RILEY. 221 N. Main Street St Louis, Mo. 



UNIVERS.\ri REMEmES. 



\Vc liave received several circulars from the 

 •• Union Fertilizer Company of New York," 

 cryiu": up tlie merits of a miraculous panacea 

 of theirs, which they kindly ofler to the public 

 at tlie low price of .f-to per ton, packed in bar- 

 rels ready tor shipment. The Secretary of this 

 Company rejoices in the very appropriate and 

 suggestive name of A. 8. Qu.vckenbosii, and 

 he assures us that tlic article which he oflers for 

 sale, besides being an excellent Fertilizer, is 

 •'sure death and extermination to the Canker- 

 worm, the Curculio, the Apple Motli, the Potato 

 Bug, the Cotton Worm, the Tobacco "Worm, the 

 Hop Louse, the Army Worm, the Currant Bug, 

 and all descriptions of insect and vermicular 

 life which infest and devastate the Orchard, the 

 Garden, or the Farm." Of course, as with all 

 other Qu.vcic remedies blazened forth with such 

 avast parade of bosh, there is a host of certi- 

 ficates appended to the printed Circular, 

 showing how " the Insect and Worm Extermi- 

 n.itor" was applied by Mr. Jones to his currant 

 bushes, and how not long afterwards Mr. 

 Jones's currant bushes were entirely free from 

 worms, though they had previously been 

 swarming with "vermicular life;"' how Mr. 

 Smith, who had manured his potato patch with 

 the Patent Exterminator, raised a much better 

 crop of potatoes than his neighbor Thompson, 

 who had tried to grow potatoes without any 

 manure at all; and how a dozen diflTerent men, 

 whose orchards wore formerly much troubled 

 with canker-worms, and who have, for the last 

 year or two, been drenching their apple trees 

 with heroie doses of tbia never-failing Bug-des- 



troyer, have scarcely seen a single canker-worm 

 on their trees, ever since they invested their 

 money in tlie Great Miraculous Insect-killing 

 Exterminator. But who does not know that, 

 whether the " Exterminator/' be applied or 

 not, all currant-worms after they have got their 

 growth disappear from among the leaves iu or- 

 der to form their cocoons ? Who denies that ev- 

 ery Fertilizer, that contains no other ingredients 

 than clean sand, must necessarily be more or less 

 beneficial to some crop or other; and that 

 though it may be positively injurious to wheat, 

 to corn, to hops and to fruit trees, it may yet 

 be an advantageous preparation to apply to 

 potatoes? Lastly, what well informed Orchard- 

 ist is not awai'e that, for the last year or two, 

 the Canker-worm in several widely-remote 

 regions in the United States has ceased to 

 swarm as it used to do — most probably from 

 the action of the ditferent parasites that prey 

 upon it, either when it is in the egg or when it 

 is in the larva state? The trouble with all such 

 panaceas as this vaunted New York "Extermi- 

 nator " is, that we hear nothing of the ninety 

 and nine cases where the Universal Remedy 

 was applied and found to do no good, while In 

 the one case where the medicine worked well, 

 or was supposed to work well, the happy exper- 

 imenter lauds it to the skies iu a flaming adver- 

 tisement. In the words of the veteran sports- 

 man, when his juvenile companions were brag- 

 ging of their achievements with the fowling- 

 piece — 



AVhat is hit is history, 

 But what is missert is mystery. 

 Of course, for all such interesting and instruct- 

 ive advertisements as those above referred to. 

 the eloquent inditer of them may, or may not, 

 get " value received " from this Right Honor- 

 able Company, which has apparently been born 

 under the most felicitous auspices in Wall 

 street, N. Y., and after being carefully nursed 

 through a rickety childhood in the Gold Room 

 of the Great City of Gotham, is now in its ma- 

 ture manhood flooding the whole country with 

 its elegantly printed Circulars, in praise of 

 " the only sure Remedy for destroying Worms 

 and Insects injurious to Vegetation." 



