JUNE 26 
407 
THE RURAL ISEW-YORKER. 
year before; but did not measure it separately 
from the product of another field. I seeded 
the field down last year, and at this time it 
promises fair for a good yield of grass. 
Judging from this test, and from what I 
have observed for several yeai'6, I am not pre¬ 
pared to accept the theory that this is a very 
unprofitable crop to raise, on account of being 
injurious to land. Farmer. 
Del. Co., N. Y. 
burn over all the low-lands in the vicinity each 
winter, thus destroying the hibernating in¬ 
sects ; for he agrees with Dr. Asa Fitch that 
such locations are their usual lurking-places. 
When they have begun their ravages, the 
best method of destroying them, he thinks, 
is by crushing with rollers or by poisoning 
with arsenic, Pans-green, or London-purple. 
tance to most bee-keepers than the one so often 
discussed as to the best method of increasing 
the number of colonies; for since the intro¬ 
duction of movable frame hives and the new 
system of managing bees incident thereto, to¬ 
gether with the great fertility of Italian queens, 
the increase of an apiary to almost any desired 
extent, in a comparatively short time, is ren- 
wuo wisn to keep more than from 10 to 5 U 
colonies, to supply their families with the de¬ 
licious sweet, and furnish some surplus for sale, 
to assist in paying for the family groceries, 
and for the purpose of affording recreation for 
their leisure hours. In order to do this satis¬ 
factorily, we want a system of management 
by which swarming can be controlled and pre¬ 
vented, and the increase of numbers be made 
to store surplus honey in the most suitable 
condition for market, instead of storing it in 
an additional number of hives for the support 
and wintering of an increased number of col¬ 
onies. I will hazard a few suggestions in re¬ 
gard to this system :— 
First, keep no more bees than your field 
will support. If you have as many col¬ 
onies of bees as can be sustained during 
the working season, and secure sufficient 
stores for winter, little surplus need be 
expected. In such case the result would nat¬ 
urally be that a few strong colonies would 
give some surplus; the medium ones might 
just squeeze through the winter; and the weak 
ones starve to death. L T nder such circum¬ 
stances, one half the number of colonies 
would give double the surplus that the whole 
would do. Second, procure hives, and if pos¬ 
sible chaff hives, with surplus room for 150 
pounds of honey, or thereabouts. Place in 
such hives the working force of your common 
colonies. You may thus secure double or 
triple the working force in each colony, and 
secure from the one colony 150 pounds or more 
of surplus honey. This may be done if your 
bees swarm, by placing two or three swarms 
in the new hive. An old maxim among bee¬ 
keepers is: “Large hives for surplus; small 
hives for increase." “ Ligurian." 
DAMAGES OF THE CLOVER-ROOT BORER 
AND OF THE CLOVER-SEED MIDGE. 
PROFESSOR I. P. ROBERTS. 
The recent surprising and uuaceountable 
failures of clover either to produce hay or 
se<-d, have been explained by the presence of 
two very dangerous insects. On the Univer¬ 
sity Farm wc have been obliged to plow up all 
our clover ground—some eighteen acres—be¬ 
cause of its unproductiveness occasioned by 
the borer. When the Injuries which the clover 
had suffered first became apparent this spring, 
it was generally supposed that it had been 
winter-killed ; but upou a careful examination 
of the plant, it appears that the borer injures 
the crown of the]>lunt which will often still 
retain life enough in the roots to make a slight 
start iu the Spring, but will then wither down 
to the grouud. The habits of the borer have 
been ascertained by Prof. Riley to be about as 
follows :— 
Dnring the Summer the insect has been found 
in all stages, as larva, pupa and adult, and it 
hibernates in any of these stages, though the 
adults are generally most numerous at the 
time of frost In the early 8pring months the 
insects issue from the grouud and pair. The 
female then bores into the crown of the clover 
plant and there deposits several eggs which 
hatch out in about one week. At first the 
young feed in the cavity where they were 
hatched, but soon burrow down into the roots 
where they change from the larva to the pupa 
state. 
On the farm the clover of last year’s 
seeding has not been so badly injured as that 
of older growth, and the experience of the 
farmers of this county will lead them to plow 
up all clover after the first year. So far, this 
would seem to be the only alternative to escape 
the ravages of the insect. We have discovered 
the pest at work not only upon the common 
clover but also upou Lucerne—Medieago ea- 
tiva—and Black Mediek—Medieago lupulina. 
The injury caused by the Clover-seed midge 
is of quite another character from that of the 
borer, and is especially evident at the present 
time. The clover iu both the first aud second 
crop fails to blossom, although the clover- 
heads are hard, as though full of seed, and 
have an appearance as though about to blos¬ 
som. When the separate llowers are opened, 
they are found to contain the yellow larva) of 
the midge. The midge seems to stunt the 
growth of the plant, thus materially injuring 
it for hay, which lacks the fine aroma it should 
possess. 
As they also attack the second crop of 
clover it would appear that they are two- 
brooded. The insect affects clover just as 
the Wheat-midge or weevil affects wheat, aud 
the former bids fair to become quite as dan¬ 
gerous aB the latter. The habils of the insect 
are quite similar to those of the Wheat-midge, 
as ascertained by Prof. Riley. The larvae, 
when growu, fall from the clover-heads and 
hide in the leaves aud loose soil where they 
form a small cocoon iu which they assume the 
pupa state. The flies begiu to issue iu Sep¬ 
tember and later, and during the following 
Spring. In this locality no clover seed has 
been growu for the last three or four years. 
As yet, there has been no remedy discovered, 
and it is ouly io be hoped that their natural 
enemies will multiply fustcr than they. 
Cornell University. 
■fig. 21S.—(See first page.) 
dered an easy matter. With anything like 
skillful management, the number of colonies 
may easily be doubled annually, and may even 
be tripled or quadrupled. As the increase is 
iu geometrical progression, the number in a 
few years would become enormous, and over¬ 
run all bounds. Say that we already have fifty 
colonies, and take the lowest ratio, in three 
years more there would be four hundred; and 
in three more sixteen hundred ; which to most 
bee-keepers would be an alarming increase. It 
is true I have made no allowance for mishaps 
in wintering or otherwise; but I have taken 
the lowest ratio, aud it is well known that the 
Italian bees, in anything like a favorable sea¬ 
son or district, will send out two or three 
natnral swarms, aud the first swarm some¬ 
times sand out others. Our territory thus 
becomes overstocked, and instead of our bees 
gathering large quantities of surplus honey, 
our pasturage affords only enough to take our 
strongest colonies through the winter, leaving 
the weaker ones to be doubled up, or to perish. 
To say nothing of overstocking the territory, 
there are but comparatively few bee-keepers 
who make apiculture their only business, to 
the exclusion of all others. Most of them are 
farmers or mechanics, who cannot devote their 
whole time to their bees, or even so much of it 
as isuecessary to attend to forty or fifty colonies, 
especially at swarming time, which usually 
occurs at a very busy season of the year. 
And suppose they succeed in saviug all the 
swarms, after having gone to the expense of 
procuring hives for them, what are they going 
to do with them? They already nave as many 
as they can conveniently give the necessary 
PLAN OF GREEN HOUSE.- 
Either of these substances can be applied 
rapidly by mixing with water and using a 
fountain pump or garden syringe. The second 
line of defense is by means of ditches and pits 
dug around the infested field or that to be pro¬ 
tected. The ditches can be made quite rapid¬ 
ly. First plow a furrow with the “laud 6ide" 
next to the field to be protected, aud then with 
a spade make this gul<' of the furrow vertical, 
or if the soil be compact enough to admit of 
it, overhanging When the ditch i6 completed, 
holes should be dug iu it from one foot to eight- 
teen inches deep, and from twenty to thirty 
feet apart. The sides of these holes should 
also be vertical, or, if possible, overhanging- 
The worms, unable to climb up the vertical 
side of the ditch, will crawl along the bottom 
of it and fail into the holes, where they wiil 
soon perish. Where the soil is sandy, so that 
the ditch cannot be made with a vertical side, 
it should be dug deeper thau in other cases, 
aud the side made as nearly perpendicular as 
possible, so that when the worms attempt to 
crawl up, the sand will crumble beneath them 
aud cause them to fail back again. 
THE OUTSIDE AND THE INSIDE 
The Mistletoe’s description in the Rural 
of June 5, and the wood-cut on the same page, 
give a tolerably correct idea of the outside, as 
concerns the Mistletoe, but one quite insufficient 
as respects the inside. Beside being a very 
odd, if not a strikingl y beautiful plant, there are 
a charm and attractiveness about it to Northern 
eyes which look upon it for the first time, 
which it is impossible to describe. As the 
writer saw it for the first time last year in a 
journey down south to the Gulf, it was ob¬ 
served in higher latitudes as often on the 
Honey locust as upon any other tree, though, 
farther south, it infested nearly all trees, 
except, as Mr. Ravenel says, the pines. 
Familiar with the foreign estimates of the 
Mistletoe as a strongly nitrogenous fodder 
plant, the writer offered a branch of it to a 
mule that seized and eat it with as much rel¬ 
ish as it would a stalk of green corn, and Col. 
Stuart, the owner of a large Merino sheep 
ranche, near Ocean Springs, Miss., who was 
standing by, said his sheep would follow the 
wood-cutters and greedily snatch it from the 
limbs of new-fallen trees. Besides, It is seldom 
to be met with on any trees below the easy 
reach of stock or man—and the only branch 
seen in a ride of many miles, within ten feet 
of the grouud, was on a Honey locust where 
thorns protected it from stock. Of its value as 
a fodder plant, M. Isidore Pierre, a distin¬ 
guished agricultural chemist, says : “I have 
often heard tell in Normandy that cows are 
exceedingly fond of the Mistletoe, and that 
one could readily call Ihem up from consider¬ 
able distances by showing them a bunch of it. 
Besides, skillful and experienced daii y men have 
informed me that the plant improved the qual¬ 
ity of milk, by strengthening the animal, aud 
thus they always reserved a certain quantity 
particularly for such cows as were about to 
have calves.'’ Acting on this information. M. 
Pierre made a careful analysis of the plant and 
found it to contain, in a green state, 98 per 
cent, of nitrogen, and in a dry state, 25 percent. 
And he also found that the branches and 
leaves contained nearly the same amount of 
nitrogen, and he drew the conclusion that, 
whether in a green or dry state, the Mistletoe 
contaius more of this valuable principle than 
any other fodder plant he knew. In con¬ 
clusion, he says: “I could name several 
proprietors in Normaudy who annually gather 
something over 1,200 pounds of Mistletoe 
from the apple orchards, to the great advan- 
TO WHAT EXTENT SHALL WE IN 
CREASE ODE BEES. 
A question of the greatest importance to 
most bee-keepers is, how can we secure the 
largest amount of surplus honey, in the best 
marketable condition ? Can it be best done by 
THE ARMY-WORM AND THE ENT0M0L0G 
ICAL BUREAU, 
On .June 13tb, Prof. J. Henry Comstock, the 
Entomologist of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture addressed a letter to Commissioner Le 
Due, in which he gives the result of his inves¬ 
tigation of the irruptions of the Army-worm 
into Kent Co., Del. He status that in every 
end view. 
section 
instance the pest appeared hrst .n wheat, but the a continued increase in colonies, or is there a I time to for profitable management. There tage of the trees and to the equal satisfaction 
greatest inlury was douo to the corn, which, limit at which the increase becomes uuproduc- are but few places where the annual increase °* t, ^ r cows. 
heiug young and tender, was eaten to the tive and unprofitable ? I believe all authorities of an apiary can be sold. There are places, These facts may he of value to our Southern 
ground wherever it was encountered. lie admit the possibility of auy given district be- if yon required an empty hive to be furnished friends where there is a great scarcity of 
gives a condensed accouut of the natural his- coming overstocked. When this limit is whercyou could scarcely give theswarms away! fodder, and especially suitable fodder for milch 
tory of the worm, which is substamiallY the reached, either from an insufficiency of pas- In consequence, some bee-keepers are com- cows al certain seasons of the year, and at the 
same as that briefly outlined iu the Rural of turage or from au indisposition of the bee- polled to resort to the brimstone pit, to keep 8ame time Icad them t0 reverse their estimate 
June 12th. The best means of preventing a keeper to increase his stock from any cause the number of their colonies within bounds. of the Mistletoe as a robber and a thief having 
recurrence of the pest 'U cultivated fields, he whatever, what is the best system of manage- I know some intelligent bee-keepers who no redeeming trait of character aud no saving 
thinks, would be to juspect any low-lylug lands ment to secure the greatest amount of honey, practice this, and contend that, under the cir- 8ide - 
in the neighborhood, aud if any Army-worms with the least cost ? Is there any management cumstances. It is the most profitable way they Pigeon and Poultry Manure.—T here is 
are there discovered to destroy them either by reduced to a system, by which we can control can be disposed of. A few persons can make considerable difference of opinion as to the 
burning over the and, if possible, or by poi- and prevent further increase of colonies, and a large number of colonies profitable, when best and most profitable use that can be made 
sonmg with arsenic, Paris-green, or London- ma ke the whole increase of bees continue to they are raisiug Italian queens for sale, and of these fertilizers. And as in a multitude of 
°*, whichthe store surplus honey, Instead of swarming? have a demand for them. But there is not counsellors there is wisdom, and from the 
meal condition will admit. It would be well to These are questions of much greater impor- one iu a thousand of the host of bee-keepers whole testimony ia the case the truth is to tu 
