1914. 
THIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
OL5© 
THE STRIPED TREE CRICKET. 
Will you toll me what kind of insect or 
bug deposits eggs in a slit cut into the 
bark of the shoots of a young apple tree? 
I have found a number of these deposits 
on my trees. The slit is usually about 
an inch long and contains about 25 eggs. 
Massachusetts. d. a. r. 
The group of insects to which the 
grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets be¬ 
long contains many species that are more 
or less injurious, and a few species that 
have constituted the greatest insect 
scourges man has ever known. We re¬ 
fer to the different kinds of locusts, es¬ 
pecially the Itocky Mountain locust. 
Perhaps some who read these lines can 
recall from their own experience the 
great hordes of these locusts that swept 
over some of the Western States in the 
seventies, and literally ate every green 
Work Of Tree-Cricket. Fig. 251. 
thing in their path. Fortunately, the 
tree-crickets have never proven to be 
so injurious. 
The tree-crickets are fragile in ap¬ 
pearance and the wings are pale in color, 
almost white in one species, so that it 
is called the snowy tree-cricket. The 
tree-crickets are wonderful songsters. 
The song is heard mostly at night, al¬ 
though some of the singers may be heard 
on cloudy days. The singing begins 
as soon as the dusk appears, and con¬ 
tinues during the whole night. The 
song seems to come from everywhere, and 
fills the air with a volume of shrill 
monotonous sound. The insects are re¬ 
markable for singing in unison, so that 
the songs of the different individuals con¬ 
stitute an insect chorus. The singers 
may be found among the branches of 
trees or shrubs, or even among tall 
grasses. The song of the snowy tree- 
cricket sounds like the word, treat, treat, 
treat, slowly and shrilly uttered without 
variation the whole night through. This 
is probably the most common insect song 
heard during Summer nights. 
Although the tree-crickets are fragile 
looking, yet the female is provided with 
a stout ovipositor, with which she can 
bore holes in the stems of plants in 
which to deposit her eggs. The striped 
tree-cricket (pecauthus nigricornis) drills 
several holes in a row in the stems and 
deposits a long white egg in each hole. 
Wherever she deposits these eggs she 
leaves a long narrow scar in the bark, 
like that shown in Fig. 251. In these 
scars there may be 20 to 30 eggs which 
are deposited in the Fall. The striped 
tree-cricket deposits her eggs preferably 
in the canes of raspberries and black¬ 
berries, and sometimes in the twigs of 
peach, currant, cherry, and now we find 
them in the apple, for the egg scars in 
the apple twigs referred to in the fore¬ 
going letter are made by this tree-cricket. 
This insect is sometimes quite destruc¬ 
tive among raspberries, because the 
terminal shoots are destroyed by being 
broken off at the scar. The only feasi¬ 
ble way of controlling this tree-cricket 
is to cut off and burn the infested twigs 
before the eggs hatch. 
GLENN W. HERRICK. 
STRAWBERRIES AND CORN. 
Tell me what you think of a “fool 
trick” I am going to try this Spring. 
I had a piece of good grass, a section be¬ 
tween two rows of trees, and in the ad¬ 
joining section I have a nice strawberry 
patch one year old last Fall, which is in 
line condition now. Last Fall quite early 
I plowed up the grass land, turning in 
a good heavy dressing of stable manure, 
with a flock of about 60 or 70 Buff 
Wyandotte hens following the plow and 
helping themselves to all the June bugs 
they could find. It was afterwards 
wheel-harrowed, the hens again having a 
picnic following it, and then drag-har¬ 
rowed once or twice more under the same 
conditions. I think the grub question 
will be settled, and now I intend to plant 
it to Golden Bantam corn and set a 
strawberry bed in the rows, cultivating 
them as I cultivate the corn. The plants 
I- can get easily from my old bed, which 
is right alongside of it, and I can work 
a half hour at a time whenever I can get 
a chance at taking up and transplanting 
them. The corn rows will be 3% feet 
apart and the hills two feet apart, and 
I shall set a strawberry plant between 
each hill and keep them in hills the first 
year. After the corn is off I shall pull 
the stalks, which I always do, as I keep 
no cow, and either pack them around my 
apple trees for a mulch or use them to 
mulch the strawberry plants through the 
Winter, and then next Spring fork them 
off and put them around the trees. I like 
corn fodder to mulch strawberries about 
as well as anything I have ever used, as 
it is free from weed seed, does not pack 
down hard upon the plants, and is easily 
removed in the Spring. One year I had 
a large bed mulched with it and in the 
Spring took it off and packed it around 
an apple tree that had never had a fair 
crop of apples, but the following year, 
with no fertilizer of any kind I gathered 
nearly 40 bushels of apples. I shall spray 
three times this year, including one spray¬ 
ing with lime sulphur. Will you tell me 
what the following combination figures 
out in ammonia, phosphoric acid and pot¬ 
ash. and what you would think of its use 
in my orchard which is sandy loam most¬ 
ly? I think of mixing in equal parts by 
weight of nitrate of soda, muriate of 
potash, fine ground bone, acid phosphate, 
and tankage. z. c. b. 
Connecticut. 
If the grubs have been killed out this 
plan is practical—in fact it is quite fre¬ 
quently done. We are not sure that this 
soil will be found free from grubs, in 
which case the plants will suffer. We 
should start the strawberry plants as 
early as possible. The Bantam corn 
makes a short stalk, and will not serious¬ 
ly interfere with the plants if the stalks 
are taken out at once after the ears have 
been picked. Then give the plants the 
best possible culture. We have seen some 
remarkable things done with corn and 
strawberries. In one case an old straw¬ 
berry bed was picked and then at once 
plowed and fitted. Crosby corn was 
planted in rows three feet apart. This 
made a rapid growth, and early in Aug¬ 
ust large layer or potted plants were set 
on straight lines down the middles of the 
corn rows. Both crops were hand hoed 
and the cornstalks cut as soon as the 
ears were fit, when horse culture was 
started. It was a wet season, and the 
plants made a good Fall growth and gave 
a fair crop the following year. 
If the chemicals mentioned are of good 
quality the mixture should represent the 
following: 
rOUNDS IN TON. 
Nitro- 
Pbos. 
Pot- 
gen 
Acid 
ash 
400 
lbs. Nitrate of Soda.. 
64 
400 
lbs. Fine Bone. 
12 
ioo 
400 
lbs. Muriate of Potash 
. . 
... 
200 
400 
lbs. Acid Phosphate. . 
. . 
64 
400 
lbs. Tankage. 
2S 
40 
2000 
104 
204 
200 
This means 5.2% nitrogen, 10.2% 
phosphoric and 10% potash—a good mix¬ 
ture for garden crops. 
Magistrate (to prisoner, who has 
been before him every month for years).: 
“Ebenezer Noakes, aren’t you ashamed to 
be seen here so often?” “Bless yer ’eart, 
sir, this place is quite respectable ter 
some places where I’m seen.”—Mel¬ 
bourne Leader. 
.Tones met his neighbor Smith, who 
carried a gun in his hand. “Been shoot¬ 
ing this morning?” asked Jones. “Yes, 
I had to kill my dog.” answered Smith. 
“Why, was he mad?” asked Jones. 
“Well,” said Smith, dryly, “he didn’t 
seem to be any too well pleased.”—Na¬ 
tional Monthly. 
Holding a glass of clear honey in his 
right hand, father observed impressively : 
“It cost the little bees many a weary 
trip to fill this with sweetness from the 
flowers.” Little Laura, who had been 
listening closely, exclaimed with great 
earnestness: “Wouldn't it have been too 
bad if one of them had dropped the 
glass ?”—J udge. 
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Results Are What Count. 
What One Farmer Did With a Light Draft Le Roy 
Reversible Sulky Plow. Why Not You? 
Le Roy Plow Co., 
Le Roy, N. Y. 
Gentlemen:—The two-way Reversi¬ 
ble Sulky Plow I purchased from 
you last spring has turned out to be 
a most profitable investment and 
the best tool I have on the farm. 
I figure the plow has paid for it¬ 
self already just through the extra 
cost of fitting up the dead furrows 
had I used a one way plow. 
It plowed 25 acres of stubble for 
beans, 20 acres of hard stony ground 
for wheat, 20 acres of old sod which 
had nob been plowed for years, giv¬ 
ing no trouble at all and without 
buying a single extra point. The 
points that came with the plow were 
not changed for the entire distance. 
The other parts of the plow are as good as new. My boy did most of the 
plowing and came in at night just as fresh as he went out in the morning. 
It is also easy on the horses for I never have to rest them. I figure it 
saved 455 miles of walking. I hope you sell a lot of them. Yours truly, 
Fort Hill, N. Y., Dec. 12, 1913. John H. Parmelee. 
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MANUFACTURED BY 
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LeRoy, N. Y., U. S. A. 
