STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
603 
same cause, these effects, too, exactly the reverse of what we should expect, 
we are wholly unable to explain. I can only resolve it into this, that in 
each of these cases, the Author of nature has decreed that it shall be so, 
aDd therefore it is so. 
Even though in a more advanced state of science, the vegetable patholo¬ 
gist should be able to show certain peculiarities in the physical constitution 
of these trees, whereby it will be explained why it is that the irritation 
produced by the gnawing of this worm is speedily fatal to the one fruit, 
and not at all so to the other, it will only carry us one step further back 
and lead to the enquiry, How came these trees to possess their respective 
constitutions ? Why did not the peculiarities of the cherry happen to be 
given to the plum, and thus produce a discord instead of that harmony 
which we now see ? 
And thus, wherever we fix our look in the wide domain of nature—what¬ 
ever page we open in her “book of wondrous secresy,” we perceive unmis¬ 
takable evidence, that even in all its minutest details, the vast frame-work 
of creation has been arranged by a hand that was omnipotent, that hand 
guided by an intelligence that was infinite. 
But to return from this digression. Any person on inspecting a large, 
thrifty plum tree at the commencement of June—on seeing the profusion 
of small young fruit which is everywhere interspersed among the leaves, 
would deem it all but impossible for an insect to devastate that fruit to the 
extent that the cureulio does. He would think that, here and there, at 
least, a plum hid among the foliage, or projecting far out upon the ends of 
the slender twigs, would elude the search of this insect, and thus remain to 
ripen upon the tree But, I judge from accounts it is the same all over the 
country, that it is within the sphere of my own observation—although the 
trees are perfectly healthy and vigorous, richly clothed with verdure year 
after year, we never sec a ripened plum upon them, except where special 
care is taken to combat this intruder. 
And not only this fruit, but (what many persons are wholly unaware of) 
a large portion of our apples are also blighted by this same pest. I am 
persuaded it is one of the principal causes why our orchards at this day are 
so much less productive than they were a half century ago. To obtain a 
correct idea of the intolerable evil which this insect is in our country, I 
hope every one who now hears me, if he has not already particularly noticed 
the sad spectacle, will bear it in mind next 4th of July, or within a few 
days of that time, to walk to the plum trees and some of the orchards in 
his neighborhood. You will find the ground under many if not all the 
trees literally covered with the wilted young fruit that has fallen from its 
having been blighted by this insect. Could but a fourth part of what is 
lying on the ground have remained upon the trees to ripen, it would be 
such a yield from them, as for a cycle of yoars we have never had and 
have ceased to expect. 
On cutting open these withered plums and apples you will find the same 
worm in the one as in the other, or if this worm has left a portion of the 
