224 
LADIES 5 DEPARTMENT. 
spade, he had gained on the potatoes and could af¬ 
ford to lose on the moles, and silently went on 
with his work, giving a look of despair as he saw 
the mole disappear in the grass-plot. There will 
be no use in telling him the histories of either 
mole or cut-worm, so I will write them, and have 
them published in the only place where he would 
condescend to read them, the village newspaper. 
The true or European mole is not found in the 
United States. The animal so well known bearing 
that name is of a different family, its proper name 
is shrew-mole, or crested shrew (Sorex cristatus). 
These moles live in pairs, and are chiefly found in 
places where the soil is soft, and affords the greatest 
quantity of worms and insects. In the winter they 
burrow near streams where the ground is not deeply 
frozen. Shrew-moles are most active e^rly in the 
morning and noon. The precision with which 
these creatures come to the surface at mid-day is 
very remarkable. Their strong broad feet enable 
them to remove the earth before them with great 
rapidity, and as their keen hearing warns them of 
the approach of danger, it is therefore extremely 
difficult to catch them. Their food consists of earth¬ 
worms, grubs, and the larvae of insects. When 
once a .field is infested by moles, the farmer may be 
sure that insects and grubs are abundant. The cut¬ 
worm is a favorite food, and therefore old grass-plots 
will often be disfigured by their tracks. 
The cut-worm is the young or larva, of the soft 
brown beetle that appears in May and June, com¬ 
monly called the May-bug (Phillophagaquercina). 
These beetles usually pass the greater part of the 
day sitting on the branches of trees or clinging to 
the under side of the leaves on which they feed; 
but as evening approaches they begin to buzz about 
and continue on the wing until near midnight. In 
the beetle form they live only five or six days, and 
the whole brood disappear in a month. . The 
female deposits 80 or 90 eggs, in the ground, of a 
pale yellow color and slightly oblong in shape. In 
fourteen days the eggs hatch, and the worm is then 
very small. The first year it grows half an inch 
long, the second an inch, and the third an inch and 
a half. Their food consists of the tender roots and 
shoots of corn, grass, and various other plants. 
When winter comes on, they bury themselves deep 
in the ground and remain without food until spring. 
At the beginning of the fourth year, when the grub 
has attained its full size, it buries itself from two to 
six feet deep in the earth, forms for itself a cell by 
turning round and moistening the earth with spittle, 
thus making the sides smooth and compact, and 
then waits its final change. The complete trans¬ 
formation of a cut-worm or May-bug, occupies a 
space of five years, or even in case the beetle be 
retarded in its growth by its food or unfavorable 
weather, sometimes six years. The May-bug is 
one of our most destructive insects^as the cut-worm 
spares neither corn-fields nor meadows. They 
often destroy potatoes and other vegetables, and 
gnaw the roots of trees and vines, so as to make 
them unhealthy. The full-grown insect is quite as 
destructive as the grub, devouring the tender leaves 
and buds of fruit and forest trees, and thus giving 
them an early blight. Pigs, moles, field-mice, 
skunks, crows, wood-peckers, hawks, and the large 
ground beetles greedily search after and feed on the 
cut-worm. I wonder if Peter will believe this! 
REARING OF SILK-WORMS. 
Most welcome was the April number of the 
Agriculturist. We had always perused it with in¬ 
terest, and now that our long indulged anticipations 
of a country'residence “ under our own vine and 
fig-tree” are realized, we regretted that so useful a 
• paper should have deserted us. Agricultural papers 
are particularly useful to all who commence culti¬ 
vating the soil late in life. It is easy to ascertain 
the best way of getting fruit and flowers, but 
the more practical part of obtaining a living is aid¬ 
ed much by the recorded experience of others. We 
have examined our agricultural library for direc¬ 
tions in planting all our fruit, we find no experi¬ 
ments with cranberries as far south as Virginia. It 
may be they flourish better in a cold climate than 
in a warmer one. 
Why are there so few lady correspondents in the 
agricultural papers ? I think one or two' pages 
might be profitably occupied in directions for the 
culture of the mulberry and the manufacture of silk. 
If every farmer’s wife and daughters would devote 
the expenditure for one year’s silk dresses to pui> 
chasing the necessaries for raising silk-worms, it 
would be but a short time before .we could export 
cocoons sufficient to pay for all the silk imported, 
and save the immense sum that is annually, paid to 
foreign nations for this article, or if American en¬ 
terprise were encouraged, we would soon compete 
with any nation in the hue and texture of our own 
manufactures. Several of the States now produce 
very fine silks, and it is thought that we possess 
every facility for raising the mulberry. Let no one 
say her individual influence cannot affect the twenty 
millions paid for silk, or that she has not the ne¬ 
cessary time to spare; for the children of a family, 
without encroaching upon their other avocations, 
can perform most of the labor. We can follow the 
example of the Roman ladies, and make our own 
wardrobe, and silence the assertion that there must 
be finery in the United States, follow what may in 
the rear. 
We could also silence the complaint of hard 
times, and scarcity of money, and show the world 
that though accused of extreme vanity, we possess 
energy, industry, and patriotism, equal to that of our 
ancestors, when they denied themselves the luxury 
of tea. 
Will not E. S. agree with me, and lend her ac¬ 
complished pen to support my proposition ? 
S. II. E. 
Lake Borgne Place, Prospect Hill , Va. 
How to Make Good Tea. —Boil rain water and 
pour upon your tea, letting it steep from one to two 
minutes if you wish to realize the true taste of the 
“ plant divine.” Well, river, or spring water, in 
many parts of the country, is strongly impregnated 
with lime, which acts, chemically upon the tea-leaf, 
and greatly deteriorates, or destroys its fine aromatic 
flavor. In fact, water, containing lime, or much 
vegetable matter in solution, has more or less effect 
upon all kinds of cookery. Besides, it is highly 
injurious to the health of most persons. 
