1873.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
223 
looks as if sprinkled with small drops of white¬ 
wash. The scale is of a much thinner texture 
than the other and the insect less injurious. I 
dissolved a lot of the Carbolic Plant Protector 
Soap and added it to some whitewash that was 
at hand, putting in some lamp-black to modify 
the color, and had the trees painted with the 
mixture. The whitewash Avas used as it would 
adhere longer and not be washed off by the spring 
rains as the soap alone would be. Two years 
ago some stray cattle came in and among other 
mischief broke off a fine young White Pine at 
about half its height. I disliked to lose the tree 
so I made a 
New Leader by turning up one of the hori¬ 
zontal branches and tying it to a stake. The 
operation succeeded perfectly, and at a little 
distance one would not suppose that the tree 
had been mutilated. I had furnished spruces 
and firs with leaders in this manner but never 
before saw it done with a pine. 
The Dwarf June-berry is a shrub that 
ought to be better known. Almost every one 
knows the common June-berry or Shad-flower, 
a shrub or small tree conspicuous all over the 
country in April and Slav, with its racemes 
of white, long-petalled flowers. One dwarf 
specimen that I have had for five years is only 
18 inches high, while others in better soil are 
between two and three feet. They flower so 
profusely each spring that they are completely 
clothed in a sheet of white. The fruit, which 
is about the size of a large huckleberry, is said 
to be pleasant, and in some parts of the West is 
grown for market. I speak guardedly about the 
fruit, for the birds keep such a close watch of it 
that I do not get a chance to taste it when fully 
ripe. The shrub increases with moderate rapid¬ 
ity by suckers, and, were it desirable to culti¬ 
vate it for its fruit, it could no doubt be propa¬ 
gated more rapidly. But without regard to its 
fruit, I set a high value upon it as an orna¬ 
mental shrub. Last spring I set out a plant of 
the variegated leaved and single flowered 
Japan Globe Flower, ( Kerria Japonica .)— 
The double kind, sometimes called Corchorus, 
is a very common shrub, but the other I had 
never seen outside of a greenhouse. I supposed 
that it was, of course, tender, and last fall, as the 
plant had grown to be quite a large one, I took 
up a portion of it and put it in the cellar and 
left the rest to the mercies of the winter. This 
spring I found my supposed tender Kerria alive 
to the very tips of the smallest twigs, while the 
double one, usually accounted as hardy, had its 
stems killed back one half. I had a striking 
illustration of what a difference in the time of 
flowering is made by a slight 
Difference in Exposure. —A bed about 
ten feet across cut in the lawn was planted with 
tulips and hyacinths. In spading manure into 
this, fall and spring, it has become raised, so 
that when the surface was rounded off the center 
was some eight inches higher than the circumfer¬ 
ence. The same kinds of bulbs were planted 
all around, and while the hyacinths upon the 
south and east portion are in full bloom, those 
upon the north side are just opening, there be¬ 
ing between one and two weeks’ difference 
caused by this slight elevation. 
Grape-vines are injured even more than I 
first supposed. It is rather discouraging when 
one has his vineyard fairly established and ex¬ 
pects to enjoy for the first time the full results 
of three or four years’ careful training, to have 
to begin all over again. For the most part, the 
buds upon the arms are more or less injured, 
and in many cases killed altogether. There is 
nothing to do but to grow new canes from near 
the root. It is hardly safe to set down any¬ 
thing as “ perfectly hardy.” I supposed if any¬ 
thing could be classed in that category it 
was the 
Judas Trees, but I find that with our native 
species, Cercis Canadensis , and the dwarf, Cercis 
Japonica, the flower-buds are all killed. It will 
hardly seem like spring without the cheery little 
flowers of the Judas trees. Of course every 
peach-bud shared the same fate. If the exces¬ 
sive cold of winter did much damage, it appears 
to have done some good. 
The Cabbage Butterfly (Pier us Rapes ) 
seems to have about disappeared. I am not 
sure that the cold destroyed the chrysalides, 
though, being a foreigner, this is not unlikely. 
It may have been that the recently-discovered 
parasite became sufficiently numerous to hold 
the insect in check. At all events, I have seen 
but one butterfly, and that a solitary male, 
while last year the air over the hyacinth bed 
was thick with them ; they are very fond of do¬ 
ing their courting among the flower-beds pre¬ 
paratory to a descent upon the cabbage-patch 
to deposit eggs for a crop of caterpillars. What¬ 
ever may be the reason, they thus far do not 
appear, and “for this relief, much thanks.” 
The Fertilization of Yuccas by Insects. 
The agency of insects in effecting the contact 
of pollen with the stigma, and thus fertilizing 
the flower, has been frequently mentioned and 
illustrated in these pages. While most perfect 
flowers—those that contain stamens and pistils 
in the same flower—would seem to be arranged 
in such a manner that the pistil would be fer¬ 
tilized by the pollen of the same flower, a close 
inspection shows that the arrangement is usually 
the reverse of this, and that to prevent the in¬ 
jurious effects of too close breeding, the flower 
is really so contrived that it is with difficulty 
fertilized by its own abundant pollen, but must 
wait until that from another flower, and often 
from another plant, is brought to it. Much 
pollen is carried about by winds; but very im¬ 
portant agents in this matter are the insects, 
which in going from flower to flower for sweets 
and pollen carry the fertilizing dust upon their 
bodies. Ever since the publication of Darwin’s 
remarkable work upon the “Fertilization of 
Orchids,” naturalists have been observing this 
matter very closely, and a most charming pop¬ 
ular account of the present state of our knowl¬ 
edge of the relations of insects to plants in this 
respect is given in Dr. Gray’s “How Plants 
Behave,” a work which we commend to both 
old and young. 
In the Agriculturist for December last we 
called attention to the interesting discovery, 
through the joint observations of Dr. George 
Engel maun and Prof. C. Y. Riley, of Si. Louis, 
Mo., that the common Yucca fitamentosa — 
Adam’s Needle, Bear’s-grass, or Thready Yucca 
—was fruitful only when the pollen was placed 
in contact with the stigma by a small insect. 
In this case the fertilizing is not accomplished 
by an accidental transfer of pollen while the 
insect is searching food for itself, but is the re¬ 
sult of careful preparation made by the insect 
for the welfare of its progeny. The insect, 
Fig. 2 —LARVA AND PERFECT INSECT, ETC. 
which is a small moth, collects the pollen into 
a mass, and places it in contact with the stigma 
or sensitive part of the pistil, a place it would 
not reach without some such aid. It then lays 
its eggs in the pollen, and the young soon after 
they hatch penetrate the tender pistil, and feed 
upon a portion of the growing seeds. By the 
time the seeds are ripe the grub or larva has 
attained its full growth, and eats its way out 
through the Avails of the seed-vessel, enters the 
earth, and there takes on the chrysalis state. 
The next season the insect comes out as a per¬ 
fect moth, ready to provide for the continuation 
of the species in the same manner as its parent 
did. Of course, those seeds upon which the 
grub feeds are worthless, but as the seeds in 
each capsule are many, and the larvae few, only 
a small portion are thus injured. The insect 
here referred to had passed unnoticed until the 
observations of the gentlemen above-named ; 
and at the meeting of the American Scientific 
Association, at Dubuque, last fall, Mr. Riley an¬ 
nounced the facts of Avhich avc have given a 
brief synopsis, and stated that the insect Avhich 
performed this interesting Avork Avas quite neiv 
to science, and that he had given to it the name 
of Pronuba yuccasella. 
Mr. Riley, as our readers are aware, is the 
efficient State Entomologist of Missouri, and in 
his forthcoming fourth Report upon the injurious 
and other insects of that State, gives a detailed 
description of this new insect, Avilh figures. 
Through his kindness we have the advance- 
sheets of the Report and copies of the engravings. 
As the technical description of the insect is 
much in detail, and can hardly interest the 
general reader, we omit it, referring the ento¬ 
mologists avIio Avould consult it to the Report 
itself. 
Popularly, Ave may say that it is a small moth 
about half an inch in length, and with an ex¬ 
panse of wings of 9 /i» of an inch (figure 2, c). 
The front and hind wings are shown enlarged 
in h and i, figure 1. The front wings are silvery 
white, and the hinder ones semi-transparent 
and pale brownish. Head and thorax Avhite, 
and the legs dingy yelloAA'. One of the remark¬ 
able characters of this new genus is found in 
the maxillary palpi, which have in the female 
the nasal joint produced into a long “ prelien- 
sible tentacle.” The larva (figure 2, a) is about 
half an inch long, and white. The remaining fig¬ 
ures show details of structure of the insect’s head 
and other portions, which entomologists will 
