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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
173 
concentrate themselves, and it then soon becomes 
ready to spin its cocoon. It is shown at Fig. 4. 
The one here represented, began his in an ex¬ 
traordinary manner, whether it is the usual way 
or not, I am not able to say. All the others I have 
seen operate, were in confinement. The end of a 
leaf was caught between his fierce jaws, (see Fig. 
6.) his tail began to move back and forth in a most 
violent manner, until a little cloud of fine silk in 
a half circle was evolved. I am under the im¬ 
pression this mode is adopted until much of the 
fluid has passed from the body, and the skin is 
loosened so as to allow freer action. With a 
spring that you would suppose might have knock¬ 
ed him into “ next Summer ” he brought him- 
Fig. 7—Cocoon, Pupa 
case and Pupa. 
Fig. 6—Larva commencing its cocoon, 
self flat on his back upon the leaf, the silk floating 
over him, which was soon gathered up and fast¬ 
ened to the leaf. Within, he lay gazing at his 
tail, watching it as it moved to and fro—at last 
the silk became so thick, no more of his manceu- 
vers could be seen ; at the end of two days all 
was still within. The pupa (fig. 7) is what may be 
termed necromorphous, changing within the 
sack formed by the larva ; its parts are very dis¬ 
tinctly seen ; the large eyes protruding, the wings 
folded up into the smallest space conceivable. 
It is one of the most wonderful circumstances in 
nature, how it is possible for these comparative¬ 
ly large flies to emerge from a ball of such small 
dimensions. The pupa case in the interior is so 
stout, it resembles paper—exteriorly, it is slight¬ 
ly woven as a cocoon. The 
ends of both the pupa case 
and cocoon at one extrem 
ity, are left, if not open, yet 
so loosely confined, that the i 
fly when ready to emerge, 
works its way out with ease. 
But the labor is not over yet, it is still enclosed 
in a very thin covering, from which it must emerge 
before it becomes a perfect insect. At this stage 
many of them die exhausted in the struggle for 
life. They are beautiful—all that are known to us 
as yet; their wings and eyes are always exquis¬ 
ite, even if their bodies are dark. But the ugly 
larva! Can any thing be more explicit, than that 
Nature does not always make the most useful, 
the most beautiful I How true then it is that 
“ The Useful is the Beautiful, the good and kind and true, 
To feature and to form impart their own celestial hue.” 
------ <*■- 
A Caterpillar for a Pet —If any of our 
readers who have now an utter aversion to every 
species of worm, will, during tljis month, find 
one of the largest specimens, such as they would 
term the ugliest, put him in a secure place, sup¬ 
ply him daily with such leaves as he likes, and 
minutely observe his changes as they occur, they 
will soon become interested, and derive pleasure 
from what was disgusting before. A paste-board 
box, containing a little earth, with a gauze cover 
to admit air, will answer every purpose. In 
this, the pet caterpillar will cast his skin, weave 
his winding sheet, change to a winged insect, and 
come out in a beautiful dress, and thus reward 
you for your trouhle. 
Blinks from a Lantern- 
XX. 
BY DIOGENES RKDIVIVUS. 
A GRAND EXPERIMENTER. 
It is sometimes said, that we 
can not have too much of a 
good thing. Our friend Hig¬ 
gins is very much of this opinion, 
and notwithstanding his some¬ 
what melancholy experience in 
importing rare breeds of swine, feeding beeves 
on turnips exclusively, and making his fortune on 
a thousand hens in one inclosure, he still perse¬ 
veres in the pursuit of knowledge under difficul¬ 
ties. In all my lamp-lighted exploring tours, 
I have never found a man that showed so much 
courage under overwhelming defeats. One 
should have thought that the long pickerel nosed 
sow, with her alligator brood, would have shock¬ 
ed his nervous system so severely, that he could 
never look upon swine’s flesh again without con¬ 
vulsions. Not so with Higgins. He has in¬ 
deed done importing from across the waters, but 
Isaac Stickney’s best are now in his pens, and 
you will find Higgins on any Saturday morning 
when he gets home from the city, surveying the 
stubb nosed Suffolks with the greatest complacen¬ 
cy. He now’ claims that the nose is the grand 
hinge on which all future improvements in swine 
must turn, that the ham is always in inverse 
ratio to the snout. He thinks he has now r set¬ 
tled it beyond controversy, that swine are avail¬ 
able for pork, just according to the shortness of 
the nasal protuberance. Accordingly he offered 
a premium last Fall, at the County Agricultural 
Society, for a swine that should have a shorter 
snout than his boar Pericles. 
A shrewd Yankee, by the name of Hogg, imme¬ 
diately put a pig in training for the prize. At 
two months old, the snout was bored with tw’o 
wires, and strapped firmly behind the ears, so 
that it had as poor a chance to elongate as the 
foot of a Chinese beauty in bandages. A funny 
pig was put on exhibition at the fair, and Mr. 
Hogg won the prize by one fourth of an inch over 
the Boar Pericles. Higgins, not being in the se¬ 
cret of the training, declared that he never paid 
over a “V” with more satisfaction. What sort of 
progeny will come of this training remains to be 
seen—it is an interesting problem. 
Last Fall, Higgins was a good deal exercised 
on raising wheat. He read up the authorities on 
this subject, and came to the conclusion, that 
ammoniacal manures were the one thing needful 
for the wheat crop. The papers recommended 
stale urine as a steep for the seed. This was 
certain to kill all the eggs of insects, and to re¬ 
move smut. The thing looked reasonable, and 
Higgins saved a barrel from the manure gutters 
in the barn, and soaked his wheat in it for two 
days. He noticed that the kernels were remark¬ 
ably swollen, and a little soft at the sowing, but 
suspected no evil. He put in the seed in Septem¬ 
ber, and looked with confidence to see the rank 
green spires starting in about a fortnight. Not a 
blade was visible. Three weeks went by, and 
nothing but weeds began to start. What could 
it mean 1 He dug down in several places, and 
found the kernels a mass of moldy paste. Stale 
urine had indeed killed the insects, but the wheat 
went with them. He lost ten bushels of wheat, 
that cost him eighteen dollars, to learn the differ¬ 
ence between wetting seed in urine, and soaking 
it two days. “ Valuable knowledge even at that 
price,” said Higgins, pocketing the loss and the 
wisdom with the calmness of a philosopher. 
Higgins is something of a fruit grower, that is 
to say, he attends the meetings of the American 
Pomological Society, and reads the biennial re¬ 
port of that exemplary body. He also takes 
Hovey’s Magazine, the Horticulturist, and divers 
other journals, that treat of rural affairs. In an. 
unlucky hour, he read of coal tar as an infallible 
remedy against the borer, and against rabbits, and 
all other animals that gnaw the bark of trees. 
Now Higgins had suffered a good deal from the 
apple worm, and it was only by the utmost vigi¬ 
lance, scraping and cutting out twice a year, that 
he had been able to save his young orchard, a 
plantation of five hundred trees. This labor was 
irksome, and gave him a back-ache at least twice 
a year. He read of coal tar in one of these weary 
seasons of borer hunting, and it seemed a god¬ 
send. He took it for granted that tar was to be 
applied to the bark, and, with swab in hand, 
•daubed on the hot liquid. The deed was done in 
Spring, when the trees were full of sap, and they 
did not immediately begin to wither; hut as the 
Summer came on, the trees suddenly stopped 
growing, and assumed a sickly hue. Not a doz¬ 
en of them escaped the grand experiment. The 
trees had been out four years, and had cost him 
over a dollar a piece in money and labor, to say 
nothing of the loss of time. Two hundred dol¬ 
lars were sunk in a single experiment,"to teach 
him that coal tar should be applied to canvas, 
and not to the bark of fruit trees. "Rather ex¬ 
pensive,” exclaimed the philosophic Higgins, 
“ but there is no great loss without some small 
gain. Oven wood will be cheap and plenty.” 
It is quite manifest from the example of Hig¬ 
gins, that not every man is qualified to conduct an 
experiment with safety to his own pocket. It is 
not strange that so many cultivators of small 
means are backward in trying a new method, or 
a new crop. Many of them have been bitten, and 
instead of learning carefulness, have learned 
stupidity. They dread an experiment, as a burned 
child dreads the fire. They have learned but one 
way of raising a given crop, and the operations 
of one year are as much like those of another as 
is possible They become strictly routine farm¬ 
ers, applying as little thought to their labor, as 
their beasts of burden and draft. 
It is also apparent that very much greater care 
is needed in recording experiments. Not halfthe 
records published,give us all the details necessa¬ 
ry to enable an intelligent cultivator to repeat the 
experiment with safety to his animals, or his 
crops, as the case may be. Important particulars 
affecting the result essentially, are omitted. It 
is clear enough to every one who has studied 
vegetable economy, or who has experimented, 
that hot coal tar applied to the bark of trees 
will kill them. But not one in a thousand of our 
cultivators have made the experiment, and a loose 
statement like that which entrapped Higgins, is 
likely to destroy many valuable orchards, and 
to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
Such mischievous articles are circulated and 
read more extensively than they were ten years 
ago. It is the fashion now, with both religious 
and secular journals, to have an agricultural de¬ 
partment, and the agricultural exchanges are put 
into the hopper of the office editor, who possibly 
knows a cabbage from a carrot, and the grist 
comes out good, bad, and indifferent. There is 
little discretion in the scissorings, and the agri¬ 
cultural column, though publishing much valua¬ 
ble information, sows broadcast the seeds of 
error in thousands of families that are never 
visited by a reliable agricultural journal, and 
thus all agricultural literature has come to be un¬ 
dervalued. If there is any thing for which farm¬ 
ers can afford to pay the highest price, it is foi 
sound, well defined teachings in husbandry. 
