226 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
statement, that the ranges of comb a*e placed so 
near to each other as to give only the room neces¬ 
sary for the bees to pass each other without jost¬ 
ling ; and in all these things the bees are guided 
by an unerring instinct, and have been thus 
guided for ages ; bearing constant testimony to the 
over-ruling providence of Him who made all 
things, the swarming insect as well as the firma¬ 
ment and every living thing. All his works 
praise Him. 
INSECTS HURTFUL TO VEGE¬ 
TATION. 
One of the greatest drawbacks to suocess and 
pleasure in farming and gardening, is the ravages 
of insects. Their name is legion. You meet 
them in Spring on first turning up the soil with 
plow and spade, they swarm about you in Sum¬ 
mer, they dog your steps in Autumn, and if you 
try to oultivate plants in Winter, they infest your 
green house, conservatory and parlor. They prey 
upon every tree, shrub, vine, plant, flower and 
fruit that man cultivates; nay, it is said that- 
nearly every plant has six or eight special ene¬ 
mies. Nor is it very consoling to think that every 
swarm of insects around us is only one phase of 
their existence. When they die, they will not 
stay dead, like good, honest enemies, but reappean, 
metamorphosed into some new shape, requiring 
some new method of attack. Moths, millers and 
flies, are but the representatives and propagators 
of maggots, worms, caterpillars, &c., innumer¬ 
able. Is not this one of the plagues of old Egypt 
reproduced 1 
But shame on the farmer or gardener who sits 
down in despair, and lets this allied army take 
undisturbed possession of his grounds ! Let him 
rather set himself to studying the habits of his 
enemies, to finding out their weak points, and 
when and how they can be best assaulted and 
vanquished. Much useful information has already 
been collected on this subject by Amorican and 
foreign writers. Tho late Dr. Harris, of Boston, 
prepared a valuable book on the insects injurious 
to vegetation, and Dr. Fitch, of Albany, is now in¬ 
dustriously at work among the varmints, learning 
all their ways, taking their portraits and writing 
their memoirs; all of which will soon appear in 
his second Report to the N. Y. State Agricultural 
Society. These publications also give some of 
the best remedies for preventing the increase of 
insects and stopping their ravages. We could 
only wish that some competent hand would con¬ 
dense these reports into a small and cheap book 
for universal circulation. 
Something has already been learned concern¬ 
ing these depredators, and the mode of destroy¬ 
ing them, which is of practical value. Take the 
curculio, for an instance. We have at least 
learned that certain methods of combatting him 
once relied upon are ammunition thrown away. 
We now know that he can’t be fenced out by high 
palings, nor kept from ascending trees by rings of 
tin, or cotton batting, or tarred ropes, and that he 
will often circumvent pigs and chickens. Fre¬ 
quently jarring the tree and gathering up the fall¬ 
en fruit and insects, and dusting the top of the 
tree with lime and sulphur seem now to promise 
more benefit than any other remedy. The German 
method is also useful, of mixing gypsum and spir¬ 
its of turpentine, and when dried, dusting the 
foliage with it when the dew is on. So of the 
rose bug, rose slug, borer, caterpillar, the scale, 
jumping louse, and aphides of all sorts, much has 
been learned respecting them. The best reme¬ 
dies for insects that infest the bark and foliage of 
trees and plants is tobacco water, or a dilution of 
whale oil soap applied with a garden syringe. 
The rough bark of the trees should be scraped off 
in Spring, and a good washing of soap water ap¬ 
plied with a broom or white-wash brush. The 
foliage may be cleansed by one or two applica¬ 
tions of either mixture, just as the insects appear 
in the Spring. The whale oil soap should be 
mixed with water at the rate of two pounds of 
soap to fifteen gallons of water. Weaker than 
this, would not kill the insects, much stronger 
than this would injure the trees and plants. The 
tobacco water should be used with some caution. 
The tobacco leaves, (which can be bought of any 
tobacconist at a cheap rate,) should be boiled in 
water until the liquid is of the color of weak black 
tea, one pound to four gallons of water. To pro¬ 
ceed with safety, it is best to try the decoction 
first on the foliage of some common plant, and if 
that is not injured, the mixture may be used large¬ 
ly without fear. Every good gardener should 
have One of those preparations always on hand, 
that he may bid defiance to a host of enemies. 
Another method of subduing insects is bottling 
them. Common glass bottles with wide mouths, 
filled to the neck with sweetened water, and 
hung on the branches of trees will decoy a mul¬ 
titude of insects in the course of twenty four hours. 
Beetles, millers, wasps, hornets, bees, bugs, flies, 
of all sorts, colors, and sizes, take blindly to the 
bottle, like man, and perish. Light colored bot¬ 
tles are better than dark, and they make a better 
trap if hung at an angle of about 45 degrees. 
They will need emptying every few days. A 
friend of ours once caught in twenty bottles, eight 
quarts of insects in a single day. 
As a part of this general warfare, it is impor¬ 
tant to throw up the soil of one’s garden every 
Fall, into ridges, that the frosts may better pene¬ 
trate the ground and destroy the eggs and larvse 
of insects which | Winter there. And if lime is 
used to alternate, every other year, with salt, it 
will be all the better. 
GRASSHOPPER RAVAGES—A 
REMEDY PROPOSED. 
[We insert the following letter from “An Old Farmer” 
with pleasure. The writer has raised ‘ some turkeys’ 
in his day, and speaks from experience. In connection 
with this letter it may be \vell%o turn baok and read the 
chapter on Turkies in our last number, page 198. Wo 
were not a little amused, when visiting a friend at the 
West, to see him let out his fowls morning and evening. 
He ha‘d a large number of barn-door fowls, which followed 
him around the garden like a flock of sheep ; and they lit¬ 
erally cleared the plants of everthing like an insect. They 
were trained, at first, by receiving their food in small por¬ 
tions at a time as they followed their owner, and this in¬ 
duced the habit. Sometimes he spent an hour or two in 
using the hoe, when the fowls kept near him, and even 
run between his feet. By covering a little grain previous¬ 
ly, and then digging it out, the hens had been taught lo 
watch his hoe, and when no grain was at hand they stood 
ready to nab any unlucky worm or grub that chanced to 
be uncovered. Our own garden has been kept almost 
wholly free from insects, the present season, by a multitude 
of toads which have fortunately taken up their abode 
there On this topic see the “ Good Word for Toads,” at 
page 156, in the July number of t&is volume.— Ed.] 
To tho Kditor of the American Agriculturist. 
I notice that the grasshoppers in large swarms 
have found their way from the Mormon Territory 
west of the Rocky Mountains, to the Territories 
east of them, and have committed great ravages 
in Minnesota and elsewhere this season, eating 
up every green thing in their progress, and leav¬ 
ing the land as desolate as the clouds of locusts 
ffo in Asia and Africa. 
For one efficient aid in destroying this great 
plague, I would suggest to every farmer the pro¬ 
priety of raising as many young turkeys as they 
possibly can next sehson. Perhaps I shall be 
laughed at for this recommendation, as totally in¬ 
adequate to the object. But let me tell my broth¬ 
er farmers that they have no idea of the almost 
incredible number of grasshoppers which a flock 
of 300 half-grown turkeys will devour. Early 
chickens will begin to pick up the vermin when 
very young ; and it is safe to say that a flock of 
this number of turkeys will then destroy several 
hundred thousand weekly ; yes, I might say sev¬ 
eral millions and be nearer the mark. Almost 
any farmer in our rich Western country can easi¬ 
ly raise from 100 to 500 turkeys ; and I will en¬ 
gage, if all will do their duty in this respect, they 
will promote their own interests, destroy the 
plague before it can advance upon them, and at 
the same time provide themselves with plenty of 
fine fat turkey meat for the whole of the succeed 
ing Winter. 
Several years ago there was a very destructive 
worm among the turnips in England, which at 
length increased so rapidly as to endanger this 
crop, that is almost as important to British 
farmers as the Indian corn crop is to Ameiican 
husbandmen. One of the most effectual reme¬ 
dies found for the extirpation of this worm, was 
the raising of young ducks to feed upon them. 
The Earl of Leicester had at one time a flock of 
at least 300 ducks, which he used to let into his 
turnip fields for a couple of hours or so every 
morning and evening. They sought for the 
worms on the turnip leaves with the utmost avid¬ 
ity, and in an incredible short time cleared the 
fields—the turnips that year yielding bountifully. 
I have been a reader of the American Agricul¬ 
turist from its commencement to the present 
time—fifteen years and upwards—and am happy 
to add that it has ever met my view's in advoca¬ 
ting the protection of birds, and even crows, 
snakes and toads, and the rearing of poultry, 
subsidiary to the destruction of crop-ravaging in¬ 
sects. If the good advice it has so often given 
under these heads was more often followed by our 
farmers, we should hear less complaint from 
them of the destruction of their crops by the nu¬ 
merous insect tribes. 
An Old Western Farmer. 
Note —Since putting the above in type, we 
have a report that the grasshoppers are very nu¬ 
merous in Cecil County, Md., so much so that in 
some places they have entirely eaten up whole 
fields of seed clover, and the tops of beets and 
other vegetables in the gardens. These insects 
are described to be similar to those at the West, 
and the plague may be nearer to us than is sup¬ 
posed.—[E d. 
A FREE CONCERT * 
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. 
Flushing, L. I., July 20, 1857. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Will you please excuse the intrusion of an 
early rising Lark for dropping into your open 
window a card from my friends Bobolink, Robin, 
Sparrow and Jay, which they published in the 
Vermont Christian Messenger. We have had a 
meeting of Bird Musicians this morning in your 
garden, hoping to meet you there to report our 
proceedings as usual, but hearing you were absent 
from home, I was deputed a committee to ask you 
to publish through all the land this announce¬ 
ment, whioh was unanimously adopted at our 
gathering. Miss Lark. 
Public Notice I 
There will be a Free Concert in every village 
in the oountry during the Summer months, at sun¬ 
rise, to continue one hour, when all persons, old 
and young, who might be presumed capable of 
relishing the entertainment, are cordially invited 
* This letter, though In type, was unavoidably crowded 
over in our last two issues. It would never be out of sea 
son, however.— [Ed. 
