THE BUBAL NEW-YORKER. 
233 
in the stock, and then the nuts be picked. off by 
hand or threshed by machines made expressly 
for the purpose. As peanut oil may be used as a 
substitute for, and by many is considered equal 
to olive and almond oils, we may confidently ex¬ 
pect to see the culture of this plant greatly ex¬ 
tended in the next few years, as it has been in 
the past. 
-♦-*-♦- 
THE JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE AGAIN ! 
It used to be thought, in the credulous years 
of the past, that those who wrote about facts 
which happened in their own days, or shortly 
before, were likely to know at least as much 
about them as later writers. This fallacy, how¬ 
ever, has been triumphantly exploded by the his¬ 
torical critics and scientists of our time, and, a 
good deal more emphatically, by a.shoal of small- 
fry philosophers who pretentiously dogmatize 
about what they have learnt from wiser heads, 
who presented it only as a probability. If man’s 
knowledge of the past shall continue to increase 
in the future as it has of late, the antediluvian 
ages will contain no mysteries to those living two 
hundred yearB hence, while the genesis of all 
creation will be as certain as a mathematical 
demonstration to our enlightened descendants a 
couple of thousand years later on. 
These thoughts wore suggested by some new 
rays of light thrown upon the obscure question 
of the origin of the Jerusalem Artichoke, in an 
article by Prof. Asa Gray, in the American Agri¬ 
culturist for April. Aiftuent authorities, not only 
iu this country but all over Europe, coincided in 
the belief that this esculent was introduced Into 
Europe from Brazil, and later writers have al¬ 
most universally reiterated the statements to this 
effect, made by their predecessors. The Profes¬ 
sor, however, scouts tin's ides, and argues forci¬ 
bly, though not conclusively, that its original 
habitat was somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. 
He agrees, however, with these repudiated au¬ 
thorities. that tho term “Jerusalem” is an En¬ 
glish corruption of the Italian word Girasol, 
sunflower, applied to the plants cultivated at an 
early date in the Fames© Garden in Italy. Prof. 
Gray s authority, in such matters, deserves high 
consideration; but now comes in the German¬ 
town Telegraph, dogmatizing very vigorously on 
tho subject almost in tho identical words of the 
Professor, which shows how geniuses will, some¬ 
times, clash. 
In support of its belief that the plant could 
not have originated in Brazil, It superfluously 
informs ub that that is a tropical country, and 
then adds, what many will not be so ready to 
credit, that no plant from that part of the 
world would be hardy here. Yet botanists, out¬ 
side the suburbs of Philadelphia, usually allow’ 
that many plants are hardy in tropical and extra 
tropical latitudes. From ita own inward con¬ 
sciousness or some recondite authority, it has also 
learnt that tho word “Jerusalem” applied to 
the tuber is a corruption of some French word 
of the same sound to English ears, but it leaves 
the world in the densest kind of ignorance as to 
what that French word was. Yet it complac- i 
cntly informs its readers that its sole object In 
touching tho subject was to substitute correct 
for inaccurate information, and settle the ques¬ 
tion generally. 
--- 
CHINESE YAMS ONCE MORE. 
Seeing in some of the papers questions and 
answers concerning the Chinese Yarn — some 
speaking favorably and others as unfavorably of 
its qualities as a table vegetable—I concluded to 
ask the Rural, aa that we consider to be the 
oracle in all things pertaining to the good of the 
farmer. Please answer m tho columns of the 
Rural if you consider this vegetable fit to raise 
for the t able and where seed can be procured. 1 
should like to try them this year, if considered 
profitable.—A. Durant, Licking Co., Ohio. 
Some twenty or more years since, we planted 
our first crop of the Chinose Yarn, or IJioscorea 
Batatas, and have cultivated a few from that 
time until the present. It was claimed, when 
this plant was first introduced, that it would su¬ 
persede the common potato, as it was fully as 
hardy and equally as good, not liable to disease 
and would yield more bushels per acre. But, 
alas for all these claims, and the vigorous “ puff¬ 
ing” about its morits by those who had the plants 
for sale ! it was soon discovered that the tubers 
had such a liking for their native land, that they 
invariably tried to go cross-lots to reach it, 
whenever planted in a good, deep and rich soil. 
In other words, the tubers grow perpendicular, 
one to three feet long, the big end at the bottom, 
while about one-third of tho upper part was not 
larger than a pipe-stem or a man’s little finger 
at best, and so brittle that the least pull broke 
them off. In order, therefore, to dig a crop, a 
man must undermine them, and then lift the 
tubers very carefully, to prevent bruising and 
breaking. 
The flavor of the tubers is about as good as 
that of an ordinary potato, and not unlike it in 
taste. The vine is quite ornamental, and will 
grow twenty feet high in a season, blooming late ! 
in summer, and we think an aero might yield a 
goodly number of bushels, if any one had the 
courage or capital necessary to dig over such a 
depth of two or three feet iu order to get out the 
crop. 
In time of famine, the Dio scored Batatas 
might come in as a last resort for a table vege¬ 
table. but. not so long as other tubers, which grow 
“ right-end-up" can toe cultivated. If you want 
a pretty vine, to grow over an arbor or lattice- 
work, the Chinese Yam will certainly come iu 
most admirably; but to raise it profitably for 
market or home use, yon will need Chinese la¬ 
borers to come over and dig the crop, at the 
Oriental price of a cent or two per day. 
have emerged, leaving a small, round hole into 
the cavity which has been its homo from the 
previous autumn. 
A BEAN WEEVIL. 
Nearly fifty years ago the entomologist, Thos. 
Say, found a small weevil in the seed of an 
Astragalus, grown near his residence, in tho 
Slate of Indiana. This beetle he described 
under the name of Bruchus obsoUius. Tho spe¬ 
cific name was probably bestowed upon it on 
account of the variableness of tho markings on 
the wing covers (elytra), as wo gather from Mr, 
Say's description. He says:—“The whitish, 
cinereous markings are not very striking; on 
the elytra they may sometimes be traced into 
PEA AND BEAN WEEVILS. 
The Pea-weevil is probably known to most 
farmers iu the United States and Canadas, and 
for many years it has been a great pest, the 
larva, or grub, eating out a great part of the 
substance of peas laid by for seed or other uses. 
This insect is supposed to be a native of Amer¬ 
ica, and Linn-eus, more than a century ago, 
described it under the name of Bruchus pisi, or 
Pea Bruchus, the generic name justly meaning 
Dcvourcr, as almost every farmer who has culti¬ 
vated peas of late years will admit. 
At, what period in our bistory this insect was 
first discovered infesting tho cultivated pea is 
unknown, hut It must have been quite early, as 
tho botanical travelers from foreign countries 
found it here a hundred and fifty years ago. It 
appears to have become quite abundant in the 
eastern Middle States during the last cen¬ 
tury, for in a paper by William Bartram, read 
July 14, 1769, before the Philadelphia Agricul¬ 
tural Society, we loaru that this pest was so 
abundant in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that 
“ scarcely one pea in a thousand escaped its at¬ 
tacks." But it was also noticed by Mr. Bar- 
tram that the larva, or grub, while eating out a 
hole in a pea, largo enough for its own conveniuce 
and that of the beetle into which it would event¬ 
ually bo transformed, seldom touched the germ 
or undeveloped pin mu la. Hence the peas that 
were infested grew almost as freely and vigor¬ 
ously as those that were not. The same writer 
also observed that after the introduction of the 
foreign varieties of the pea, this insect aban¬ 
doned the native peas, which must previously 
have been its food, and confined its ravages to 
tho imported sorts, thereby exhibiting a discrimi¬ 
nating taste, as many other beetles have done at 
the expense of the fanner. 
The Colorado Potato Beetle is one of the 
latest instances of an insect, abandoning its nor¬ 
mal food - plant for another belonging to the 
same genus or one closely allied to it. But this 
pea-weevil lias become so very abundant, that 
most, of our seed peas are either imported from 
Europe or some few northern localities where 
the pea-weevil has not as yet made its appear¬ 
ance. Although, aB we have said, the grubs in 
the peas seldom destroy the germ, still from 
long experience it has been found that the in¬ 
fested peas do not grow as vigorously and freely 
as sound seed, notwithstanding what has been 
claimed to tha contrary. Moreover, farmers and 
gardeners have no desire to perpetuate and 
increase the number of Buch pests on their 
premises. 
The femalo Bruchus deposits her eggs on the 
young pods of the peas while growing in the 
garden, and the young gTubs penetrate the pod 
and enter the pea, but the hole made being quite 
small, it readily closes up behind them, leaving a 
mark scarcely to be seen by the unassisted eye. 
Iu gathering the green peas for tho table, no 
one thinks of looking for weevil grubs, and few 
would find them if they did; but they are 
there, nevertheless, and are eaten with the peas 
throughout the season, without injury to the 
partakers of such delicate morsels. 
The peas left for seed grow to full size, and 
so do the grubs within them; and in due time 
these undergo their various transformations, 
and towards spring, if one of the infested seed 
is cut open, a full-grown weevil will be found, 
ready to emerge when the warm weather of 
spring bids it to come forth. 
In the accompanying illustration (a), one of 
these weevils is shown, magnified, or as it ap¬ 
pears under a good lease. At the left the out¬ 
lines of a specimen are also shown, of the natural 
size, and a pea (h), from which it is supposed to 
two obsolete macular bands." 
A few years since wo began to hear complaints 
of tho ravages of a bean weevil in the Middle 
and Southern States, and it appeared to be close¬ 
ly allied to our old acquaintance, tho pea weevil, 
but with a very marked difference in its habit; 
for u’hile the female of the pea weevil never or 
seldom deposits more than one egg to each seed, 
this bean weevil lays from ten to twenty or more 
to each, and it is nothing unusual to find twenty 
full-grown beetles in a single good-sized bean, 
in spring. Upon submitting this inRect to onr 
best coleopteristB, thoy decided that it was the 
old B. obsoktus of Say. which had taken to the 
common, cultivated bean, and perhaps entirely 
deserted its native food-plant, the Astragalus or 
veil ch. 
The accompanying illustration will give a good 
idea of this weevil, and tho difference between ft 
and tho pea weevil, the drawings of both having 
been made by Prof. Riley ; but tho insect (a) is 
here magnified, while a natural-size outline is 
given at tho left. An infested bean is also 
shown (b), from which two weevils have emerg¬ 
ed, and tho dim dots mark the places where oth¬ 
ers are located beneath the thin skin. 
HOW TO GET RIO OF THEM. 
This is a question which has puzzled the farm¬ 
ers and seedsmen generally, and although many 
different, methods of destruction have baen rec¬ 
ommended, still the weevils appear to increase, 
probably because so few try systematically to 
destroy them. 
Both peas and beans, when infested with 
weevils, should be packed in air-tight vessels, as 
soon as gathered, and well dried in autumn, and 
at the same time gum camphor liberally sprinkled 
in among them. The fumes of the camphor will 
kill every weevil which happens to appear during 
the winter, and some of onr seedsmen say that 
it penetrates the seeds, lulling the larvro within. 
Benzine, sulphur, cyanide of potassa and other 
offensive and poisonous substances may be em¬ 
ployed, where the beanR and peas are to be used 
only for seed, but will not do if thoy are kept for 
other uses. Healing the seed is also recom¬ 
mended for killing the grubs, but considerable 
Oare is required to provent injuring the vitality 
of the germs, while the temperature is still high 
enough to kill the insects. 
But every man should avoid sowing infested 
seed, and if all would do this there might be 
some chance of reducing the numbers of these 
pests, even if they were not all destroyed. 
-♦-*--*- 
STAMPING OUT NOXIOUS INSECTS. 
Mr. Andrew Murray, the well-known ento¬ 
mologist of England, has submitted a paper to 
the Royal Agricultural Society in which he pro¬ 
poses that noxious insects should be stamped out 
by concert of action on the part of Agriculturists 
in every district where they occur. It is not 
proposed that an attack upon all the species 
should be attempted at one lime, but that a com¬ 
mencement should he made by selecting the 
most destructive species, and following it up un¬ 
til it should be annihilated, then attack the next, 
and so on, one at, a time, until all shall have 
been destroyed. Mr. Murray shows that the 
habits or life history of such insects have been 
carefully worked out by our scientists. The 
time and place of depositing their eggs, the 
habits of the larvae, and the condition of the 
chysalis when there is one, and the life of the 
imago or full grown insect, all being well known, 
it only remains for men to go to work and effect¬ 
ively stamp out the species. 
We are not quite so far advanced in entomo¬ 
logical knowledge in the United States as they 
are in Great Britain, still we know enough of the 
history of most of our noxious insects to do 
much towards reducing their numbers, if there 
could be some concert of action inaugurated 
among our fruit growers and farmers. 
It is often asked, “ What, is the good of onr 
entomologists studying the habits of hugs, 
beetles and other insects ?" and it is difficult to 
answer the question satisfactorily to persons 
who know nothing of the scienoe, for the masses 
judge of the value of a discovery by its practical 
results. If the inventor of the steam-engine or 
the telegraph had not succeeded in obtaining the 
assistance of others in working his instru¬ 
ment, little good would he have done to man¬ 
kind. Tho samo is truo of discoveries in ento¬ 
mology, for the scientific entomologist can do 
little more unaided than to point out the way, 
and show when, where and how our insect foes 
should be attacked, and our friends in the same 
field be encouraged. The execution, however, 
must devolve upon others. 
Individual application of tho knowledge de¬ 
rived from our entomologists, is of little use 
when attempting to fight any species of insect, 
so numerous and widespread as the Colorado 
potato beetle, cotton worm, or chinch bug, for 
one man may clear his farm of tbORe pests while 
his neighbor is brooding them by millions. It is, 
therefore, plain that combination and co-opera¬ 
tion in such matters are the only effective means 
of proceeding against these enemieH. 
In some foreign countries the destruction of 
noxious insects is made compulsory by legal 
enactments, and wo fear that tho same will have 
to be done in thiB country, before any real pro¬ 
gress can be made in ridding onr fields and or¬ 
chards of such pests. For what little we do 
know of the history of onr noxious insects we 
are indebted to a few men like Dr. LkGonte, 
Horn, Riley and the late Dr. H arris, but the 
county lias profited little by their discoveries 
through the indifference of tho masses iu avail¬ 
ing themselves of tho Information which oould 
be had for the asking. 
®jjc naturalist, 
“ALL EVIL.” 
In proverbs and adages, we are told, are con¬ 
centrated the wisdom and experience of ages; 
bnt in these irreverent, analytic days we are apt 
to test those ancient maxims by tho touchstone 
of broad common-sense. Thus tried, many of 
the proverbs, dear to tho simplicity of our fore¬ 
fathers, and ready in their mouths, prove to be 
largely alloyed with cant or nonsense. Although 
they sink in our respect, therefore, they are still 
often convenient pegs on which to hang a lesson 
or a moral. The Naturalists’ Monthly Bulletin 
makes this handy use of the dubious old Baying, 
“Tho love of money is the root of all evil," and 
then to tho obvious question—Why ? gives the 
pertinent answer It is because our children are 
taught that riches alone bring happiness. Even 
our churches have become places to flaunt the 
outward evidences of wealth, and excite envy 
and covetousness. Two sentences ought to be 
placed in them all: 1 Lead ns not into tempta¬ 
tion," and ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ If our 
children- were taught to find their pleasure in 
objects of Nature, instead of in $10 Easter eggs 
or $100 dells, how much happier thoy would be, 
and how much better fitted to come in contact 
with the realities of life l But in America, now, 
the rule is to get money, honorably if you can, 
but, any way so long aa you are not caught by 
the law. 
“ In Germany, where the systems of Froebei 
and Pestalozzi are now almost universal, the 
lessons of -mercy, honor, patience, thoughtful¬ 
ness, and truthfulness, that a contact with Na¬ 
ture teaches the child, are appreciated. We do 
not find tho feverish haste to amass wealth that 
is seen in England ami America. When we re¬ 
flect what an amount of evil Satan still finds for 
idle hands to do, we must agree with the great 
scientist, that a study of Natural History is the 
best means of giving a true and abiding faith in 
the futnre, and that 'Surely, our innocent 
pleasures are not so abundant in this I ife that 
wo can afford to despise this or any other source 
of them. Wo should fear being banished for 
our neglect to that limbo where tho great Flor¬ 
entine tells us are those who, during this life, 
“ wept when they might bo joyful.” ’ 
“ Every true collector knows that he is per¬ 
forming true missionary work in encouraging 
his young friends to Btndy NaHure. One Of tho 
best and oldest collectors in the United States is 
pastor of the leading Presbyterian otouroh of the 
country, and, for tho last thirty years, we doubt 
whether there has been a day when ho has not 
preached, at least twice, from the text: 
“ ' Sermons In stones. 
Tongue* tn trees. 
Books in runnlntr brooks. 
And good In every thing.’ " 
-*-*-♦- - —- 
Winter Grasshoppers Oct Eap.ly. —On the 
23d of last February, while crossing a had spot 
in the field, we caught a grasshopper half grown, 
and as lively as in June. What do you think of 
that for our bleak hills of New Hampshire ?—J. 
L. Henry. 
That grasshopper belonged to a native species 
which hibernates during the winter, consequently 
it was ready to come out and get a bite of some¬ 
thing to eat wherever an occasion presented. 
