THE CULTIVATOR. 
171 
dart with great velocity into the entrance of the hive. The bees will not 
pursue the moths on the wing, and the moths far outstrip them in flight 
on foot. The moths live about ten or twelve days, during which time I 
cannot perceive that they take any nourishment w hatever. The only ob¬ 
ject of their existence seems to be to deposite their eggs, which are small, 
round and white, and of which I have seen ten dropped in rapid succes¬ 
sion. For this purpose nature has most skilfully provided them with a 
sort of proboscis about the sixteenth of an inch in length, which is con¬ 
tracted and protruded from their tails, and vibrated with great velocity, as 
wasps or hornets do their stings, which it somewhat resembles. With 
this admirable apparatus the eggs are deposited in places which are inac¬ 
cessible to the bees, as they would be destroyed by a thrifty and a spirited 
hive. As soon as the young maggot casts it shell, it envelopes itself in a 
web which is closely attached to the hive or stand, and which is impervi¬ 
ous to the bees. These webs are enlarged as the maggots grow, and they 
row fast and fatten kindly, no matter whether a poplar or pine plank, or 
oney-comb and its delicious sw’eets, are the elements upon which they 
subsist and weave their webs. 
From one experiment I am satisfied, that the maggots w'ill attain their 
full size of half an inch in length, and the thickness of a large knitting 
needle in the short space of eight days: but of this I can speak with great¬ 
er certainty hereafter, as I have now' two lot of eggs under observation. 
The maggots have tough, jointed, white skins, and hard oval black 
heads. They crawl but slowly, and rarely venture from under the pro¬ 
tection of their w'ebs; though they often pass, like moles, through the 
centre of a sheet of comb ten or fifteen inches in breadth, making a par¬ 
tial web over each cell in the route. Though the bees cannot I believe, 
penetrate the hides of the maggots, either with their teeth or their stings, 
still they can fight them and carry them out of the hives; and this they 
will do, when the hive is thrifty and in good spirit. I have often seen a 
maggot straighten himself and crawl off, apparently unhurt, after having 
been fought by several bees for many minutes; and I have seen the moths 
run over the bees and escape out of sight, by the time the bees had faced 
about to give them battle. 
After a brief existence the maggot gathers his web close around him, 
becomes inactive, and gradually assumes a harder black shell, which it 
bursts and is again a fly in about twenty days. 
I have been somewhat particular, thinking it important to know the ha¬ 
bits and character of the insects, in order to know' how' to destroy them. 
I have tried in vain to disgust and drive them from the hive, by the use of 
turpentine, worm-wood, penny-royal, &c. I have tried confining the hive 
close to,the stand, and plastering up all the crevices with quicklime, and 
I think the plan with tubes for enhance (which I first saw seggested in an 
eastern paper) might succeed, did it not require a nicety of material, and 
a precision of construction, which are not within the reach of ordinary 
bee-masters. After losing two valuable hives by relying upon the close¬ 
ness of the boxes, I abandoned the plan, and have since tried elevating 
them upon blocks with better success. The zeal of your esteemed cor¬ 
respondent J. J. V. for his plan has led him into an error, of which a close 
look into a thrifty and spirited hive will convince him. He will see the 
comb surrounded and covered with such dense clusters of bees as po fly 
could penetrate: and any moth w'ould conclude that it was far easier, 
(saying nothing of danger,) to lay its eggs in the lower and unguarded cor¬ 
ners of the hive than in the more distant and frequented parts. All my 
stands have been more or less infested this year, and two which were but 
partly raised from the stand have been entirely destroyed; and, from daily 
observation, I am satisfied that the moths invariably at first, deposite their 
eggs in the lower parts of the hive, and chiefly where it sits upon the 
stand; whence the webs are gradually extended until they reach the comb. 
The bees then soon relax their industry, lose their spirit, and commence 
to eat their honey, in which other bees unite, and which may be known 
by unusual quantities of excrement about the hivo. The moths and the 
maggots aree mboldened to greater intrusions: they boldly enter the in¬ 
most recesses of the hive, and soon the work of devastation is disgusting 
and complete. The bees, not having spirit to resent the inttusion, and 
not being able to prevent it, languish, die, or desert the stand. 
In a future number, if you wish, I will give you an account of the plan 
I have practised during the present season, and which I think most sus¬ 
ceptible of general practice and success. 
Your friend, R. W. S. 
Note by the Editor —We wish our correspondent had added to the 
valuable information contained above, the account of the manner in which 
the depredator he so well describers, may be destroyed. The evil itself 
is indeed well described, and w'e wonder our friend did not point out the 
cure; especially as he knows his article in that shape, would have been 
more useful. Indeed, we had almost determined not to publish it until 
lie added to it, the remedy of the evil. Let him, however, furnish his plan 
—he knows he is always welcome to our columns. 
A SYNOPSIS OF THE IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE. 
We shall conclude with a few Brief notices of some of the most promi¬ 
nent benefits and improvements which modern science has contributed to 
the art of agriculture. The husbandman of antiquity, as well as those o 
the middle ages, were destitute of many advantages enjoyed by the mo¬ 
dern cultivator. Neither the practical nor the theoretical agriculturists 
of those periods had any correct knowledge of geology, mineralogy, che¬ 
mistry, botany, vegetable physiology, or natural philosophy; but these 
sciences have given the modern husbandman the command of important 
agents, elements and principles o( which the ancients had no idea. The 
precepts of their writers were conformable to their experience; but the 
rationale of the practices they prescribed they could not, and rarely at¬ 
tempted to explain. Nature’s most simple modes of operation were to 
them inexplicable, and their ignorance of causes often led to erroneous 
calculations with regard to effects. We are indebted to modern science 
for the following among other improvements, viz: 1. A correct know¬ 
ledge of the nature and properties of manures, mineral, animal and vege¬ 
table; the best modes of applying them, and the particular crops for which 
particular sorts of manures are best suited. 2. The method of using all 
manures of animal and vegetable origin while fresh, before the sun, air 
and rain, or other moisture, has robbed them of their most valuable pro¬ 
perties. It was formerly the practice to place barn-yard manure in layers 
or masses for the purpose of rotting, and turn it over frequently with the 
j plough or spade, till the whole had become a mere caput mortuum, des- 
j titute of almost all its original fertilizing substances, and deteriorated in 
quality almost as much as it was reduced in quantity. 3. The knowledge 
and means of chemically analyzing soils, by which we can ascertain their 
constituent parts, and thus learn what substances are wanted to increase 
their fertility. 4. The introduction of the root husbandry, or the raising 
of potatoes, turnips, mangel wurtzel, &c. extensively, by field husbandry, 
for feeding cattle, by which a given quantity of land may be made to pro¬ 
duce much more nutritive matter than if it were occupied by grain or 
grass crops, and the health, as well as the thriving of the animals in the 
winter season greatly promoted. 5. Laying down lands to grass either 
i'or pasture or mowing, with a greater variety of grasses, and with kinds 
adapted to a greater variety of soils; such as orchard grass, (Dactylis 
glomerata,) for dry land, foul meadow grass, (Agrostis stricta,) for very 
wet land, herds grass, or timothy, (Pleum pratense,) for stiff clayey soils, 
&c. 6. The substitution of fallow crops, (or such crops as require culti¬ 
vation and stirring of the ground w'hile tire plants are growing,,) in the 
place of naked fallows, in which the land is allowed to remain without 
yielding any profitable product, in order to renew its fertility. Fields 
may be so foul with weeds as to require a fallow, but not what is too often 
understood by that term in this country. “ In Englaud, when a farmer 
is compelled to fallow a field, he lets the weeds grow into blossom and 
then turns them down; in America, a fallow means a field where the 
produce is a crop of weeds running to seed, instead of a crop of grain.” 
7. The art of breeding the best animals and the best vegetables, by a ju¬ 
dicious selection of individuals to propagate from. These improvements, 
with others too numerous to be here specified, have rendered the agri¬ 
culture of the present period very different from that of the middle ages, 
when it had sunk far below the degree of perfection which it had reached 
among the Romans.— Encyclopaedia Americana. 
Young Men’s Department. 
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 
The object of Natural Philosohphy is, to observe and describe the 
phenomenon of the material universe, with a view to discover their caus¬ 
es, and the laws by which the Almighty directs the movements of all bo¬ 
dies in heaven and on earth. It embraces an investigation cf the laws of 
giavitation, by which the planets are directed in their motions—the laws 
hy which water, air, light, and heat are regulated, and the effects they 
produce in the various states in which they operate—the nature of co¬ 
lors, sounds, electricity, galvanism, and magnetism, and the laws of their 
operation—the causes which operate in the production of thunder, light¬ 
ning, luminous and fiery meteors, hail, rain, snow, dew and other atmo¬ 
spherical phenomena. In short, it embraces all the objects of Natural 
History formerly alluded to, with a view' to ascertain the causes of their 
varied appearances, and the principles that operate in the changes to 
which they are subject; or, in other words, the laws by which the diver¬ 
sified phenomena of universal nature are produced and regulated. One 
subordinate use of the knowledge derived from this science, is, to enable 
us to construct all those mechanical engines which facilitate human labor, 
and increase the comforts of mankind, and all those instruments which 
tend to enlarge our view's of the operations of nature. A still higher and 
nobler use to which philosophy is subservient, is to demonstrate the Wis¬ 
dom and Intelligence of the Great First Cause of all things, and to enlarge 
our conceptions of (he admirable contrivance and design w hich appear in 
the different departments of universal nature. In this view, it may be 
considered as forming a branch of Natural Theology, or, in other words, 
a branch of the religion of angels, and of all other holy intelligences. 
This department of natural science has been generally divided, into the 
following branches: 
1. Mechanics.— This branch, consideredin its most extensive range, 
includes an investigation of the general properties of matter; such as so- 
