down to feed the calves. Trap-doors and 
chutes can be put in. A granary was not 
called for ; but 1 would certainly have one, as 
shown in the plan. The alley through the 
granary leads down stairs. 
A floor, of course, must be built over these 
stables and the granary. I would make the 
space eight feet in the clear. Then one has 
the room over-head, and the bay opposite, 
for hay or fodder. With a horse-fork these 
receptacles can be filled easily. Our friend 
called for storage for 25 tons. In a few years 
he would be sorry he had not three times 
as much, and as it would cost but little more, 
I have arranged for pretty well towards 100 
tons, if all the room is filled, and posts 16 feet 
long are used, above the basement. I should 
use posts 20 feet long here ; but in that prairie 
country friends write that would be too 
high. One can put in wheat, thrash, and fill 
part of the space with straw, if there is too 
much for hay. 
Lay planks across the beams to catch the 
straw from the carrier, and then push it over 
into the bay. I keep in all my straw in this 
way. Bricks and stones are scarce in this lo¬ 
cality, so I would build pretty much above 
ground, with a wall and bridge to get on to the 
barn floor. Our friends can build a bank 
cheaper than they can buy stones for a base¬ 
ment in the ground, and then above ground is 
healthier. Three feet in the ground will do 
nicely. The barn should be covered with 
ship-lapped or matched boards, and then 
inside of the stable it should be boarded on 
the inside of the girts with matched lumber to 
make the building warm. This can be done 
with straw, however, until money is more 
plentiful. 
It is intended to have eight bents. One 
purlin plate will be sufficient. It will be a 
little unhandy to take the horses out from the 
barn floor to water. A track could be built 
down through the hay bay into one of the 
stalls below, if desired. Then they could be 
taken down into the basement. Our friend 
asks for the cheapest roofing material. I can 
not answer, not knowing the prices at that 
point. I prefer shingles here. Under slates is 
too warm a place for mowing away hay. 
Other materials may not last as long a time 
as is claimed for them. 
If any brother can give as much capacity 
and convenience in a shape that will cost less 
to build, I wish he would: I have done the 
best I could. 
Summit Co., Ohio. 
farm Cciwmij. 
A FARMER’S TELEGRAPH. 
Adjoining almost every village of any con¬ 
siderable size, running out from it in some 
one direction along a main thoroughfare, lies 
a community of farmers, who could be united 
to the town and its business by telegraph, 
and make it one of the pleasantest conveniences 
of the day. The cheapness of the material at 
present, brings it within the reach of every 
farmer who has enterprise enough to appre¬ 
ciate so great an addition to the family pleas¬ 
ures and convenience. 
To show that this is no Utopian idea I may 
state that such a line has been running by my 
house, and in regular operation for nearly 11 
years. The project was worked up in the 
winter of 1877, and the line completed from 
the village out into the country eight miles 
the following spring. While I am writing a 
lady six miles east of me, is informing anoth¬ 
er lady in town that her brother was taken 
suddenly ill yesterday. The value of such a 
line to farmers and neighbors, can be appreci¬ 
ated only on trial. It will pay for itself every 
year in the saving of lives and labor in 
emergencies. If you meet a friend in 
town whom you wish to take home to tea, 
it is generally quite agreeable to the wife 
to know. Calls for a physician or the veter¬ 
inary surgeon are frequent. The range of 
the thermometer is noted and stated from 
different points on the line every evening, or 
when called for, and the weather signals are 
reported from the village I his is quite an 
important feature, and is becoming more and 
more important to farmers as the service 
improves in accuracy, as it certainly will. 
Even for present uses, no farmer would do 
without it after he once enjoyed the privilege 
of its companionship, but improvements are 
to continue. Should the postal telegraph 
system become a verity, then lines outside 
the country will be almost a necessity, and 
the advantages of one already established 
would be great. The plant for a telephone 
line, with the instruments, costs too much at 
present, and the mechanical telephones can 
only connect two families—wire at each end 
—while the telegraph works right along to 
every house connected, and gives us connec¬ 
tion with neighbors even though the roads 
are impassable. 
LEARNING TO READ. 
There is little difficulty in this. Persons 
past the middle age learned on our line in a 
very short time, and are now good operators, 
although they generally cannot read or write 
so fast as the younger members of families. 
Girls 10 to 12 years old read everything as fast 
as it comes, and write as readily. 
The ability to telegraph and to read a mes¬ 
sage is quite an accomplishment to a family 
of children, and may serve some of them a 
good turn in an emergency. A little practice 
with the alphabet for an hour or so each day 
will soon familiarize one with the sounds, so 
that in a week quite satisfactory messages 
can be sent and received, even though they be 
slow. 
COST OF THE LINE. 
Our line is Ho. 11 galvanized wire, which 
weighs 211 pounds to the mile. No. 12 would 
serve quite as well for a five-mile line, and 
that weighs 163 pounds to the mile, which 
wire ought now to be laid down anywhere for 
$4.00 per 100 pounds. The insulators with 
wood brackets cost, about $5.00 per 100. A 
battery of 12 cells complete will cost about 
$10.00. We use 30 poles per mile. These can 
be got from the timber lots on the farms. Ours 
are mostly tamarack and oak. To put up a 
line requires some one person who has had ex¬ 
perience in splicing, tying to insulators, etc., 
but nearly all the work can be done by prac¬ 
tice hands, who will become skilled workmen 
when the line is completed, so that repairs can 
be made without employing a specialist. L. G. 
Tillotson & Co., of New York, or the Electric 
Co. of Chicago, will furnish all the supplies 
and make prices for short-line instruments at 
from $4.00 to $6.00 each. Each office needs 
a lightning arrester, ground and cut-off, at a 
cost of 90 cents each. The ground can be made 
by driving six or eight feet of old iron rod in 
the bottom of the cellar, and attaching the 
ground wire (which should be of copper) to it. 
The cells should be placed in a cellar that does 
not freeze. The battery can be divided—six 
cells in each—and placed at either end. Blue 
vitriol can be purchased at 10 cents per pound 
or less, and 25 pounds will run a battery of 
12 cells a year, and that is all the cost, except 
for repairing a broken wire or some accident 
to the line. There should be at least two fam¬ 
ilies to the mile, so that the expense can be re¬ 
duced to each, and there may be 20 instru¬ 
ments on a five-mile line, run by the one bat¬ 
tery of 12 cells. Ours is a stock company, 
with shares of $5.00 each,and one share entitles 
the owner to the use of one instrument on the 
line and one vote at the annual meeting. All 
messages are free to share-holders, but others 
must pay for the use of the line. Our revenue 
from this source is not burdensome, and the 
fee of 10 cents per month for each instru¬ 
ment is collected as often as funds are needed 
to replenish the battery. a. c. glidden. 
Van Buren Co., Mich. 
THE SCAB OF POTATOES. 
ana and Prof. Forbes of Illinois, announced 
that their studies had detected these beetles 
were somewhat phy tophagus ;that is,vegetable- 
feeders. Only three species have been so far 
identified as injuring crops In this country, al¬ 
though many kinds, it is stated, destroy crops 
in Europe, sometimes ravaging hundreds of 
acres. With regard to the different kinds of 
the true Carabidae, however, that infest or¬ 
chards and arable land, not a single record ex¬ 
ists of their taking a morsel of vegetable food. 
Thus the species belonging to Calosoma, Car- 
abus and some other genera are to be consid¬ 
ered decided friends of the farmer. They are 
quite plentiful in cultivated fields and vora¬ 
cious devourers of plant eating insects. 
The Ground Beetles are found everywhere, 
in all soils, on mountains, in marshes, on the 
leaves and blossoms of the highest trees, and 
also in the crevices of the bark and among the 
roots,under the bark of dead trees and old logs, 
under every stone and stick, even to the verge 
and really in the edge of water-courses and 
the sea—being sub-aquatics. Indeed, the diving 
water beetles are of the same class—Adephaga. 
They are similar in many respects of struc¬ 
ture and in predatory habits, although hav¬ 
ing certain modifications necessary to their 
surroundings. After all, very few of all 
the species of ground beetles abound in 
more than one situation, and kinds closely 
alike, even of the same genus, sometimes have 
quite different habits, and continually live in 
unlike surroundings. All alike are preda¬ 
ceous, as observation will always confirm. 
Their hard mail coats and powerful toothed 
mandibles eminently fit them to do battle 
and perfectly adapt them for destroying any 
form of small animals, including insects. 
They are also inordinately voracious. Some 
differ so much, however, from the others as 
PART II. 
W. L. DEVEREAUX. 
I 
Fig. 212. 
Fig. 213. 
Ground beetles a fruitful cause of scab in po¬ 
tatoes ; various members of the Carabidce 
family, though beneficial in destroying in¬ 
sects, are also pernicious in injuring vege¬ 
tation-, the geodephaga, harpalida s, coloso- 
ma, caribus, all are destroyers of vegeta¬ 
tion as well as of insects; various sun-bee¬ 
tles, loxopezce, rove beetles are also semi- 
beneficial, so that a vast multitude of in¬ 
sects may heljj in making potatoes scabby. 
The Geodephaga or predacious land beetles 
of thefamilyCarabidse, are constantly extolled 
for their habits of feeding upon herbivor¬ 
ous insects—cut-worms, caterpillars, white 
grubs and potato slugs’ eggs and mumia and 
are justly classed as beneficial insects. But it 
is often forgotten that the early British and 
Continental observers of insects had discover¬ 
ed that many of these beneficial beetles also 
greedily eat kernels of wheat, succulent roots, 
and young blades of plants. American au¬ 
thors have made very little mention of this 
habit so injurious to the farmer, usually com¬ 
mending the whole family as being very use¬ 
ful, and, while it is true that every member 
of it, comprising in the U. S. some 1,200 
species, has decidedly a carnivorous appetite, 
very few abstain from vegetable food entirely, 
and nearly all of the sub-family Harpalidae or 
black-clock, beetles and their young find more 
than half their subsistence in vegetable sub¬ 
stances, most of them feeding on tender grow¬ 
ing roots and blades, while some take decay¬ 
ing vegetation for food. 
About eight years ago Prof. Webster of Indi- 
and of these the most numerous in our fields 
belong to the semi - beneficial Harpalides. 
Two loosely defined classes of these are known 
as “black blocks” and “sun beetles.” The lat¬ 
ter are bright, glistening beetles,having a cop¬ 
per, or golden and green reflection, like Ptero- 
stichus Sayi (Fig. 213), P. lucublaudus, Platy- 
nus cupripennes (Fig. 215), P. melanarium, 
Amara obesa (Fig. 214), and A latior, the latter 
a common sunshiner superstitiously thought 
to bring terrible storms if killed. There are 
also to be included the Baltimore and Rustic 
Dissimilar toe, the herding calauthus, and the 
Four-spotted Bembidium (Fig. 212). 
All the above are more or less abundant and 
have been observed by me in potato hills: 
not all, however, have as yet been detected 
nibbling the tubers. The most plentiful of 
the agricultural ground beetles in the Middle 
States is the Pennsylvania Harpalus, which 
with the large Harpalus caliginosus is found 
abundantly under sheaves of wheat and oats, 
where the pests eat many soft kernels, and 
cut off and rattle out of their husks many 
more: there is no mistaking this common pest 
in the harvest field. The former I have often 
seen with numbers of the previously mention¬ 
ed beetles, eating seeds of various kinds, even 
climbing up the stems of partially lodged 
grain, and after harvest they are often to be 
found in the branches of th9 common rag¬ 
weed eating the seeds or nutlets. One species 
of Harpalus nearly like the Deceptive Harpal¬ 
us, was named by Mr. Say, in reference to 
this last habit, “herb-rambler.” Nearly all 
the genuine Lebiee are found on flowers, and 
the food of these beautiful beetles is obviously 
small thrips and other insects. Loxopeza 
grandis so often seen eating the eggs of the 
potato beetles, receives many merit marks 
from numerous observers. Yet this very bee¬ 
tle, and also L. atriventris are met with very 
commonly in the ground with potato tubers, 
and I expect to find they eat the surface of 
the potatoes that on digging prove to be scab¬ 
by- 
One other family of beetles is also implicat¬ 
ed. It is the Rove Beetle, some of which con¬ 
form with the ground beetles in their carni¬ 
vorous appetite, and they have a common 
habit of feeding on decaying vegetation, fungi, 
and sometimes tender underground sprouts, 
especially where they are drawn to potato 
ground by au abundance of stable manure. I 
expect to find they also assist is making 
scabby, disfigured potatoes. I trust that ob¬ 
servers will give the actions of ground beetles 
close inspection next season, to determine this 
vexed question. I believe my observations 
will be confirmed, and we shall find that not 
wire-worms alone, but many other insects 
cause this serious injury to the crop. Plots 
yielding scabby potatoes, to which I gave close 
and constant but fruitless examination for 
every sort of wire-worm, and several publish¬ 
ed reports from various sections were former¬ 
ly inexplicable to me, but now an easy ex¬ 
planation is vouchsafed, for Mother Earth 
teems with ground-beetles everywhere, and 
they are in especial abundance in new 
lands, sometimes plentifully in sandy loam 
soils and highly manured places, but most 
often in gravelly and cobbly soils. 
Wayne Co., N. Y. 
A PERMANENT LABEL FOR TREES. 
often to select vegetable food in preference to 
animal food, and are hence justly herbi-car- 
nivorous. To determine which these are, 
classification cannot be followed to any ex¬ 
tent. Simply close observation of each 
species is needed. I have little to say here 
of the mountain, marsh, or forest beetles. 
It is only those inhabiting cultivated lands 
which have to do with crops, and they 
may be called agricultural ground beetles, 
It is necessary that every fruit tree in the 
Experiment Grounds here at the Station should 
be plainly labeled in order that a record can 
be kept from the time it is set out. The first 
label that was used consisted of a strip of zinc 
about three inches long and half an inch wide, 
with a small hole pierced in one end. The 
name and also the number of the tree were 
written upon the zinc with an ordinary lead 
pencil, and the label was secured to the trunk 
of the tree by means of a double-pointed car¬ 
pet tack driven through the hole so that the 
label huug loosely on the tack. This label did 
not prove satisfactory, for two reasons: first, 
Its continual swinging upon the tack with 
every little breeze wore away the zinc until 
the label dropped from the tack; or else the 
growth of the tree covered the tack and des¬ 
troyed the label. 
We have used for several years the style of 
label that has been so frequently recommend¬ 
ed by the horticultural press, consisting of a 
strip of zinc about seven or eight inches long 
and one inch wide at one end and tapering to 
a point at the other. This is attached to the 
tree by coiling the narrow end around a small 
limb. Very many of these labels become de¬ 
tached from the trees during the season from 
various causes, and require to be replaced. 
Considerable time is also consumed in find¬ 
ing the label on each tree. That of course is 
of little consequence to the ordiuary fruit 
grower; but it becomes an item of consider- 
