T GT-OVER ^ 



THE 



VOL. 2. 



ST. LOUIS, MO., SEPT.— OCT., 1869. 



NO. 1. 



CDIjc ^meritait ^iitamola^ist. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 

 F. STXTX5X.E~5r Sc CO., 



104 OLIVE STREET. ST. LOUIS. 



TEKM.S Two dollars per annum in advance. 



BE\.J. 

 CHAS. 



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V. 



WALSH 

 UILEY, -2 



EDITORS : 



21 N. JIaii. .^tri-ft 



...Rock 



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WHY NOXIOUS INSECTS INCREASE UPON US, 



It is ail old and a very true remark, that the 

 various insects that afHict the Gardener and the 

 Fruit-grower are year by year becoming- more nu- 

 merous and more destructive. One principal rea- 

 son for thi.s result is sufficiently obvious. The con- 

 tinual tendency of modern impiovement is to con- 

 centrate vegetable gardens and fruit farms in 

 certain peculiarly favorable localities, instead of 

 scattering them evenly and uniformly over the 

 whole country. Hence every injurious insect 

 that troubles the Gardener and the Fruit-grower 

 has an abundant supply of such vegetation, as 

 forms a suitable nidus for its future offspring, 

 close at hand, instead of having to search for it 

 with much labor over an extensive surface of 

 countiy. Such insects are therefore enabled by 

 this means to increase and multiply with greater 

 ease and greater rapidity. Upon precisely the 

 Same principle, if you scatter over the suilace 

 of a whole county the amount of shelled corn 

 that is just sufficient to feed a certain gang of 

 hogs, and compel them to seek it out and pick 

 it up every day of the year, tliey will not thrive 

 so well nor multiply so fast, as if you feed out 

 the very same amount of corn to them in a ten- 

 acre lot, day after day lor a whole year. 



To a gentleman in Arkansas, who had ex- 

 pressed the opinion that that State was the 

 best in the Union for the peach and the grape, 

 and that Illinois was not naturally adapted to 

 the culture of fruit. Dr. E. S. Hull recently re- 

 l)lied in the following masterly manner. We 

 copy from the Journal of Agvi culture for Au- 

 gust 14, 1869 : 



Siu — Your confidence in the superior adapta- 



bility of your .soil anil climate will probably not 

 be maintained after a few years" experience. 

 Just in proportion as you increase improved 

 fruits, just in that proporl ion will fruit insects 

 and fruit and fruit tree diseases increase with 

 you. A recognition of this fact will each year, 

 as you multiply your orchards, become more 

 and more apparent. Your Hale's Early peaches, 

 at tirst, will be free from rot, your pear trees 

 measurably exempt from pear tree blight, your 

 vines free from vine lio|)pers, the grapes free 

 from grape codlings and rot, etc., etc. From 

 some cause, not yet well understood, all or 

 nearly all young vineyards are for the first few 

 years of fruitage, free from I'ot, and then ever 

 afterwards subject to it. The same is true of 

 cherry, peach, and plum rot. Therefore (o 

 those engaging in horticultural pursuits, a 

 knowledge of the several difficulties likely (o 

 be encountered should be recognized, and so 

 far as known the remedies for each difficulty 

 must be promptly applied. 



In this State, or in certain portions of it, 

 many persons believe that horlicullure is un- 

 dergoing a great revolution, and ultimately 

 that the business will be mainly in the hands 

 only of the well-informed — those who under- 

 stand and promptly apply the proper means. 

 In view of known facts and observations, made 

 during the past twenty-three years in this part 

 of the West, and further South, I am convinced 

 that all sections alike must recognize as facts 

 these statements. 



Here the matter seems to have dropped. No- 

 body has thought of accusing Dr. Hull of being 

 an atheist and a blasphemer, because he has said 

 that the more you multiply your orchards, and 

 the more you increase improved fruits, the more 

 will bugs and other kinds of destructive organ- 

 isms multiply and increase upon you. Nobody, 

 in fact, has even gone so far as to insinuate that, 

 simply because he has written the letter which 

 we have printed above, he leans towards Socini- 

 anism, or Arianism, or Erastianism, or any of 

 the other fine shades of ism, whereby hetero- 

 doxy (whatever that may be) differs from 

 orthodoxy. 



Now, mark how one man is allowed to steal 

 a horse with impunity, and another man may 

 not even look over the hedge without being 

 thrown ilito jail for it. Henry Ward Beecher, 

 in one of his contributions to the Ledger, re- 

 cently e.xprcssed the following sentiments; and 

 turn them which way you will, they merely 



