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68 
ious insects that have been equally prevalent, will in time disap¬ 
pear, especially in those localities where it is now most abundant, 
even though we leave the work wholly to Nature. But we must 
give her time. Nature moves more slowly but more surely than 
man, and her judgments take the course of an inevitable retribu¬ 
tion. If we can have more patience, and get along with fewer 
potatoes for a year or two, I doubt not the day of our redemption 
will draw nigh. But as we do not know exactly when that time 
will come, and as patience without potatoes may seem to many a 
tedious virtue, I opine there can be no sin in our doing what we 
can to hasten the wished-for result. Let us see, then, what hope 
we can derive from any success that has attended past efforts in 
this direction. 
There are four principal methods and agencies which have been 
adopted for the purpose of destroying these prolific and pernicious 
insects: first, hand picking and mechanical contrivances ; second, 
sun-burning; third, starvation ; and fourth, Paris-green. Mr. 
S. S. Barnes, of Olena, Henderson county, says he has preserved 
his potatoes for the last five years, by mashing between his thumb 
and finger, every bug that made its appearance on his vines, and 
picking off their eggs. He says that for early kinds, twice going 
over, once when the vines are three or four inches high, and again 
in ten or twelve days afterwards, is all that is necessary. This 
may be styled the experimentum crucis method, and is of course 
a sure cure, where it can be applied ; that is where the field is 
not too large, nor the bugs too numerous, nor the operator too 
sensitive. 
Speaking of mashing these insects in the hand, suggests the 
question of their alleged poisonous nature. Mr. Barnes says that 
though he has practiced this method freely for five years, he has 
never experienced any poisonous effects from it. There is no 
doubt, however, that they are poisonous to a certain extent, and this 
has been most strikingly manifested in the effects of the fumes 
arising from their burning bodies. Major W. N. Davis, of Aux 
Sable Grove, recently told me that his neighbors, the Messrs. 
Cherry, were quite severely poisoned by the smoke arising from 
an ignited hollow stump into which a quantity of Potato-bugs had 
been thrown. It affected them very much like an attack of ery- 
