334 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
After alluding to the early history of Vermont, its 
natural advantages and the proofs of her industry and 
prosperity around him, he said, to improve agriculture 
is wise; for as is the culture of the fields and flocks in 
any community , so is always the culture of the men and 
women by whom it is bestowed. He considered it essen¬ 
tial that the business of the farmer should be made more 
lucrative. It was equally necessary in farming as in 
other pursuits, to substitute mechanical power for human 
labor. A constant and uniform relation must always be 
maintained between the state of agriculture, and indeed 
of society, and the cotemporaneous state of invention in 
the arts. He alluded to the comparative • condition of 
American industry as exhibited at the World’s Fair, and 
argued the necessity of increased attention to manufac¬ 
turing interests. If farmers would distinguish the genera¬ 
tion to which they belong, they must have a wiser and 
more enlightened system of agriculture. This prevail¬ 
ing indifference to agricultural science cannot be suffered 
to continue. Other natious are busy in improving their 
systems of agriculture, and will continue to improve, and 
and we must not neglect to follow, or still' better, take 
the lead. There is no lack of schools or professors adapt¬ 
ed and qualified for advancing agriculture. The greatest 
want is that of pupils. No one wishes to study agricul¬ 
ture—the farmers’ sons are adverse to it generally. They 
do not intend to pursue the calling—the prejudice against 
farming is hereditary. The farmer himself is not con¬ 
tent with his occupation, nor his wife any more so. They 
regard it as an humble, laborious, toilsome one; they fret 
about its privations and hardships and thus unconsciously 
create a disgust for it in their children’s minds. 
“ The prejudice, however, must be expelled from the 
farmer’s fireside; and tl>e farmer and his wife must do 
this themselves. It is as true in this case as in the more 
practical one which the rustic poet had in view;— 
“ Trie wife too, must husband, as well as the man, 
Or farewell thy husbandry, do what thou can.” 
Let them remember that in well constituted and high¬ 
ly advanced society like ours, intellectual cultivation re¬ 
lieves men from labor, but it does not at all exempt them 
from the practice of industry; on the contrary, it obliges 
the universal exercise of industry; and that notwith¬ 
standing the current use of the figures of speech, “ wea¬ 
ried limbs, sweating brows, hardened sinews, and rough 
and blackened hands,” there is no avocation in our coun¬ 
try that rewards so liberally with health, wealth and 
honor, a given application of well-directed industry, as 
does that of the farmer. If he is surpassed by persons 
in, other pursuits, it is not because their avocations are 
preferable to his own, but because, while he has neglect¬ 
ed education and training, they took care to secure both. 
When these convictions shall have entered the farm 
house, its respectability and dignity will be confessed. 
Its occupants will regard their dwellings and grounds not 
as. scenes of irksome and humiliating labor, but as their 
own permanent home, and the homestead of their child¬ 
ren and their posterity. Affections unknown before, and 
new-born emulation will suggest motives to improvement , 
embellishment, refinement, with the introduction of use¬ 
ful and elegant studies and arts, which will render the 
paternal roof, as it ought to be,—attractive to the young, 
and the farmer’s life harmonious with their tastes, and 
satisfactory to their ambition. Then the farmer’s sons 
will desire and demand education as liberal as that now 
chiefly conferred on candidates for professional life, and 
will subject themselves to discipline, in acquiring the art 
of agriculture, as rigorous as that endured by those who 
apprentice themselves to other vocations.” 
The speaker alluded to the political power in the hands 
Oct. 
of farmers, and the importance of intelligence, wisdom 
and virtue to secure its right use. The expansion of 
our country will, year by year, call for increased atten¬ 
tion to the conservative interest. 
The address was listened to with marked attention, and 
cannot fail to do good. We trust many returned to their 
homes impressed with a higher sense of the dignity of 
their position, and higher aims for the future. 
The Onion Fly---Jlnthoinyia ceparum. 
Eds. Cultitator —A short time since, in travelling 
through the county of Essex, particularly along the beau¬ 
tiful plains in the vicinity of the Au Sable river, I had 
my attention repeatedly attracted to the sickly and 
withered appearance of nearly all the fields of onions, 
through which I passed; upon inquiring the cause, I was 
invariably told that it was the effects of a worm, and that 
it was extremely doubtful if a single tuber, in a health¬ 
ful state, would be obtained from a thousand plants. On 
raising the bulb from the earth, I had little difficulty in 
recognizing the larva of a Dipterous insect, and one of a 
species which, in England, and many other parts of Eu¬ 
rope, for .the last few years, have almost entirely destroy¬ 
ed the onion crops, upon which so considerable an amount 
of labor and experience, have been expended in their 
cultivation. To such a degree have their ravages ex¬ 
tended, that the husbandmen in those countries, have 
been driven to the necessity of giving up the culture of 
this important vegetable in despair, not having yet met 
with any efficient remedy for their destruction. 
Much uncertainty still seems to prevail among ento¬ 
mologists, respecting the peculiar habits of this little de¬ 
predator, and we much fear that they will long continue 
to remain in ignorance, unless some intelligent and inter¬ 
ested individual, residing on the spot, and has daily ac¬ 
cess to the plants, establishes a series of practical obser¬ 
vations on their habits, and so traces them through their 
various stages of existence to the perfect fly. Until this 
is accomplished, and not till then, will we, with any de¬ 
gree of certainty, be able to suggest any reasonable 
method for effectually removing them. If it be not done 
speedily, we greatly fear,—from a knowledge of the 
prolific manner of their increase,—that they will, in the 
course of but a few years spread all over the land, and 
almost, if not entirely, obliterate this highly useful vege¬ 
table from our gardens. 
This insect depredator, will, I think, undoubtedly 
prove to be the Anthomyia ceparum of Meigen, or a 
species so closely allied, as to differ but little from it, in 
any of its habits. It belongs to the second general divi¬ 
sion of the Musrides, that of the Jlnthomyzid.es, which 
are composed of species all of which have greatly the 
appearance of common flies. 
The larvce is about one-third of an inch in length, 
fleshy, and of a white color. It is of a conical form, 
with a smooth and*shining surface, and entirely free from 
any external, superficial appendages. The incisions are 
finely granulate, and the last and largest segment is ob¬ 
liquely truncated at its base, upon which is placed a sur¬ 
rounding border of eight small knobs, or projecting 
points. The insect deposits its eggs at the base of the 
plant, near the surface of the ground, which, in a few 
