468 
JULY 15 
are on quince and trained tn quenouille tha 
is distaff form—the branchlets tied into a 
drooping position. The pear yields more 
gracefully to this close pruning or finger and- 
thumb checking than the poach or apricot, 
which do not naturally form short spurs, but 
bloom chiefly on long slender twigs in lieu of 
spurs, and these are apt to die entirely out on 
the peach after once bearing, often not having 
a single wood bud through which to obtain a 
renewal shoot. 
relation to Mealy Bugs. These insects belong to 
a division of what is known as scale insects or 
Coccidee, though these do not, like many of 
them, develop into immovable scales, but are 
active during all their stages. It was in the 
early days of entomology that Linnaeus first 
named one of these species Coccus adonidura, 
now referred to the genus Dactylopius. Pro¬ 
fessor J. Henry Comstock, in his report to the 
Department of Agriculture for the year 1880, 
describes two other species as Dactylopius 
destructor and D, longifllis. These insects 
are usually to be found on the young and ten¬ 
der shoots of house plants, one or more species 
infesting the oleander. They injure not by 
eating the tissue but by inserting their beaks 
through the skin and sucking the sap, thereby 
depriving these growing parts of the nourish¬ 
ment necessary to their growth—not killing 
the plant but causing it to look stunted and 
sickly. A good idea of the general appear¬ 
ance of tbe?e bugs can be bad from Fig. 219, 
the upper one representing D destructor, 
and the lower one D, longifllis. These are 
called Mealy Bugs because the body is covered 
over with a floury or meal-like secretion 
coming from pores or openings in the skin. 
Besides this, there is secreted from the sides 
of the body a kind of cottony matter which 
is formed into lateral appendages, as is seen 
in the figures. 
The common Mealy Bug is from .10 to .12 of 
an inch long by .06 of an inch vide, white, a 
little inclining to yellowish, a brown band 
upon the middle of the back and the legs and 
antenna* a little brownish. The Destructive ti 
Mealy Bug is from . 14 to .10 of an inch long, 
by .06 wide, dull, brownish yellow in color. — 
The Mealy Bug with long threads is from .16 
to .20 of an inch long by .08 wide, being a 
little more slender t han the preceding species. — 
Color very light, dull yellow, legs and an¬ 
tenna* a little darker. Perhaps these brief de¬ 
scriptions are enough for present purposes. — 
But what shall we do with them? I found 
that with a few small plants they could be 
found one of the safest guides to be governed 
by in farming operations that mortals care to 
have.” Those who remember the great drought 
in Illinois in 1867 were prepared for its return 
in 1874; while those who went through the 
experience of the latter, were on the lookout 
for a similar phenomenon In 1881. 
Going back to 1844, a year remarkable for 
excessive rainfall and high water, we find 
years of nearly equal rainfall occurred at in¬ 
tervals of seven years, viz., in 1851, 1858 and 
1865, with a break, however, in 1872, so far as 
Illinois was concerned, but, nevertheless, so 
far as the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers 
were affected, a high water year only a little 
less remarkable than 1844. But the Summer 
seasons previous to 1844, 1858, 1875 and 1882, 
were remarkable for extensive drougtbs, and 
we may conclude with reasonable certainty 
that another great drought will make its ap¬ 
pearance about the year 1888, to be followed 
by another season of general and excessive 
rain in or l ear 1889. But these facts are 
neither based on a defective memory, nor are 
th<-y the mere assertions of an advocate de¬ 
siring to make out his case, but are taken 
from a diagram of the rainfall in Illinois, be¬ 
tween 1844 and 1S78, prepared by Prof. Cyrus 
Thomas, State entomologist, and published 
in his fifth annual report issued in 1881. But 
several times to the same correspondence in the 
Spring of 1863, it is stated that the best cattle 
will not fetch more than eight cents, live 
weight; that corn was worth 75 cents, and 
mess pork $24.50 per barrel. Quoting the 
same authority in the Spriog of 1875, I find 
numerous reports of the prices then common, 
which were very near to those now ruling for 
the leading agricultural products of the coun¬ 
try. Thus it seems to be pretty clearly 
demonstrate! that for the last 21 years at 
least the rise of prices to their highest points 
has followed closely upon the more or less 
regularly recurring droughts aud subsequent 
approach of wet seasons; and so far as the 
same climatic and commercial cau-.es shall 
operate, the same phenomena are likely to be 
repeated. But it is an interesting fact to know 
that a low range of prices soon follows these 
high figures, of which there is a good illus¬ 
tration in the case of 1S61 and ’62, and also 
the low price for the same cereals and all 
other agricultural products after the re¬ 
covery from the effects of the short crop 
years of 1867. ’63 and 1874, ’75. We may, 
therefore, safely conclude that the present 
high range of prices for food products is not 
likely to last many months. 
But there are some curious facts about the 
approach of great droughts and the recession 
of seasons remarkable for theirrainfall, which 
ought to have a place here. Droughts appear 
to approach in the regular order of dry, dri¬ 
er, driest; while wet seasons recede in the op 
posite manner, or from wettest to wetter and 
wet. Thus confining our observation to Illi¬ 
nois, the drought of 1881 made its first appear¬ 
ance in 1879, when it covered an area of 90 
miles square; in 1880 it covered the west side 
and south end of the State, and in 1881 it had 
become general. The rain of 1SS2 having been 
nearly, if not quite as widespread as the 
drought of 1881, may be expected to hold up 
slowly, and the precipitation of 1883 and ’84, 
though considerably above the average sea¬ 
son’s, will be sporadic,as the two lesser droughts 
were previous to 1881. But the next years 
following hot and dry Summers, have been cool 
as well as wet, and in that way highly inju¬ 
rious to the corn crop, as witness 1844, 1867, 
1858, 1875 and so far 1882. 
But as it is well and truly said, “ there is 
nothing absolute in agriculture,” so there is 
nothing absolute in anything I have written 
relating to the weather. The facts reported, 
however, seem to be of sufficient consequence 
to be recognized and studied by the intelligent 
farmer, and though he may not find in them 
an infallible guide as to the weather and the 
crops, they will assist him in his business by* 
clearing away some of the very mmy uncr r- 
tainties, which, from the dawn of civilization, 
have beset his path and embarrassed his labors. 
Referring, in conclusion, to the phenomenal 
Winter wheat crop now being harvested or 
still standing in Southern and Central Illinois, 
it is not an uncommon thing to have wheat 
made and saved at one end of the season while 
coru is lost at the other. Tbis occurred in 1858 
when the largest and best Spring wheat crop 
ever grown in Illinois was gathered, while 
there was absolutely no sound corn grown 
North of 39 degs. While the average mean 
temperature for May and June has been low, 
and there have been but eight or ten days of 
real Summer weather, the rainfall up to this 
time (June 21) has aggregated 16.24 inches, of 
which 8.55 fell in May and 7.69iu June, a con¬ 
dition of things which indicates the state of 
the corn crop, better than half a column of 
description. And these figures are not guess¬ 
work, but copies from the record of the Signal 
Service Station, at Champaign, Ill., not a 
mile from where I write. 
The tale about that lover of fine fruit who 
applied the axe to the roots of his thrifty 
apple trees, because boys were accustomed to 
steal most of the fruit, as related by Horticola 
in a late Rural, is very pathetic, and T do 
not doubt the truth of it, but T would like to 
know if Horticola himself approves of such 
conduct in any man who is not a lunatic. 
First, the trees were bringing no barm to the 
owner; second, the fruit w.-.s doing good to 
somebody, and if the apples were of fine va¬ 
rieties, they were cultivating in the thieves a 
taste for fruit-growing to be developed with 
honest intent in after years; but, third, the 
owner could have secured, at less than the 
cost of chopping the trees into firewood, the 
services of watchers during the season of fruit¬ 
ing, and all the paraphernalia of shot guns 
and ammunition, with big dogs, to boot. Tt 
seems to me that it would have been in pl«o > 
for Horticola to get down from his boundi lg 
steed, jump over the fence, and say sternly to 
the inconsiderate Vandal— 
"Woodman Brave that tree, 
Touch not a single bough," 
You listen now to me, 
And X will teach you how 
To save your apples and get. even with the thieves. 
I have an impression that I would ha ve done 
and said this if I had been there—but perhaps 
not. A fruit tree is much sooner cut down 
than replaced; aud a tree of a worthless va¬ 
riety, if not too old, will produce good fruit 
by topgraftiug much earlier than by plant¬ 
ing trees from the nursery. 
The short-sighted and narrow policy men¬ 
tioned by Horticola wo3 pursued by many 
farmers in Orange County, years ago, with 
the first organization of the temperance socie¬ 
ties. It was the common practice of farmers 
to gather up their Summer and Fall apples 
and carry them in great wagon boxes to the 
•‘still-yard,” and take in return barrels of 
whiskey and cider. The excited converts to 
the new cause could find no further use for 
apples if they discarded whiskey—so they cut 
down their trees, determined that no more of 
the “stuff” should be made from their or¬ 
chards. They or their children have since 
found there were other and better uses for 
apples, but the orchards had to be replanted. 
Newburgh, N. Y. a. a b. 
SOME FACTS ABOUT THE WEATHER. 
B F. JOHNSON. 
There never was a time w'hen there was 
more talk about the weather or more occasion 
for it, when as the New York Nation said in 
its leading ar'icle of June -3d: *‘ Every man of 
business is straining his eyes and ears to catch 
the latest information in respect to the grow¬ 
ing crops, because we all feel and know that 
our bread and butter are made at home, and if 
agriculture comes short everything else must 
come short;” and because, too, as was stated 
at the same time by the Rural New-Yorker, 
“The state of the weather during the next 
couple of weeks will go far towards deciding 
the question of agricultural and national pros¬ 
perity.” Interjecting the remark that for the 
Mississippi Valley above Cairo the weather 
from June 3d to June 28th, was of a character 
to save the Winter wheat crop, but at the ex¬ 
pense of the corn, and that it is not yet too 
late to secure something near an average corn 
crop, and the weather conditions of sixty days 
of the average mean temperature of 75 de¬ 
grees, six inches of rain in the meantime and 
ninety days without frost; let me proceed to 
try to show the future of the weather in many 
respects is not so uncertain a quantity as most 
people suppose. 
I shall confine myself at this time to one side 
of the question, and undertake to make it ap¬ 
pear there are certain phenomena nearly regu¬ 
larly recurring at more or leas equal intervals, 
and that for the Valley of the Mississippi the 
seasons repeat themselves in periods of between 
six and seven years. Any reasonably close 
observer who has wat-bed the progress of the 
crops and the character of the weather, by 
comparing one growing season with another 
for the past twenty five years, can tell before¬ 
hand, with .reasonable accuracy, what the 
future of a coming season will be, so far as its 
general aspect is concerned. And especially 
is this the case after great droughts have oc¬ 
curred or other Summers remarkable for their 
rainfall. But a venerable correspondent of a 
Chicago agricultural paper, in a late issue of 
that sheet, goes even further than this and 
declares, after having kept a record of the 
weather since 1832, “ when the tillers of the 
soil wi;l adopt the rule to beep a record of 
each day of the year and do so for fourteen 
years and then review it, they will find to 
their surprise that six to seven years duplicate 
themselves so, or so nearly, that it will be 
MEALY BUGS, 
Every one, doubtless, who has raised house 
plants, whether on a large scale in the green¬ 
house or the few unpretentious plants found 
EXTORTIONATE PATENTS ON WHEAT 
FLOUR. 
The Rural complains (page 90) that in the 
“new process" of milling, this taxes the con¬ 
sumer three dollars extra per barrel. I am 
glad to hear that with all my heart, and only 
wish it was ten times as much on every bar¬ 
rel of superfine white flour made in the Uni¬ 
ted States, except for export. 
All know, who have paid any attention to 
the subject of wheat fl »ur, that such as is left 
uubolted is far more nutritious and healthy 
than the bolted—in fact, I have heard some 
emiuent phvsiciaus pronounce the latter 
positively deleterious, particularly when 
eaten as hot biscuit or broad, and also as pie¬ 
crust, rich cake and crullers. Children 
brought up on this pretty exclusi vely would 
be sadly wanting in a good quality of bone 
and muscle, and almost invariably have 
miserable, defective teeth, If, on the con¬ 
trary, they eat breud, etc., made from the 
unbolted flour they would grow up and con¬ 
tinue through life quite superior in these 
requisites and be much stronger and healthier, 
live longer, aud bo more useful and enduring 
through life. 
Oat meal is also very superior to bolted 
wheat flour, and now that our Northwestern 
territory, with its Summer cooler andmoister 
1 I r li ! 7 I 1 1*77 
Diagram of Rainfall in Illinois.—Fig 220. 
droughty and rainy seasons in conjuction 
naturally lower crop yields and so much as 
to cause a considerable rise in prices as in 
1881 and 1882. What are the facts in respect 
to the droughts of 1856, 1867 and 1874? Were 
the advances anywhere equal to what we have 
witnessed within the la*, year / So far as the 
prices ruling after the drought of 1856, I have 
nothing to fall back upon but a rather reten¬ 
tive memoiy in such things. In 1857 and ’53 
corn sold in Champaign County, III., for 
$1,25 per bushel, Winter wheat for $1.50 to 
$1 60, and other agricultural products bore 
prices in proportion. 
For 1867, fortunately, I have the record 
made in September of that year, which ap¬ 
peared as correspondence in an Eastern 
agricultural paper at the time. Writing un¬ 
der date of September 26, tbe language was: 
“Oats are in demand here at 47 to 48 cents; 
wheat, too, keeps up like Boston: $1.75 is the 
ruling price for No. 2; corn brings, for old, 95 
cents to $1, and new 50 to 60 cents. Referring 
Meai.v Bugs.—Fig. 219. 
in many homes, has had to do with these little 
pests. I can well remember my first intro¬ 
duction to them—the weakly plants I tried to 
nurse into health while the mealy bugs were 
sapping from them the life I tried to invigor¬ 
ate till their presence was discovered and the 
odds against which I had been laboring were 
removed; since that the writer has been called 
upon a number of times for information in 
