59 
TEE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, OdTOBEB 26, 1858. 
than any thing else. We presume your box will be twelve inches 
deep, or thereabouts ; and, also, that you will use chiefly small 
pots—say, six inches deep—for plunging in it. If so, we would 
advise you to cover your pipe over the bottom of the box, to the 
depth of six inches, or so, with crocks, pebbles, &c., placed as 
open as possible, so that the heat may get easily to the bottom 
of the pots, whilst the sawdust above will prevent it escaping 
freely. 
If you have read what we have said, in late volumes, of early- 
forced Strawberries, you will have perceived, that, to have them 
very early, the pots must be crammed with roots, and the buds 
getting ripe by this time. Yours will be growing freely as yet, 
and, if the weather continue open, will grow ever so long, as the 
result of the large pots you have given them. Potted in the 
middle of September, the plants would have been sooner ready 
if you had put them into 48’s, instead of 24’s. Secure the pots 
now from excessive wet, and also from frost. If you have such 
a thing at liberty as an odd light of a frame, protect them with 
glass in winter; but give plenty of air, unless when the weather 
is very frosty ; and place in a light, airy part of your greenhouse, 
from tho middle to the end of March. Do not let them get very 
dry all this time, but let them be dryish, instead of wettish, until 
you see the flower-buds showing. Give more water then, but 
not over much, untill the truss is rising freely, and showing 
bloom-buds open.] 
THE APHIS. 
The name aphis means in Greek “ a bug,” and is derived from 
a word which signifies to suck a plant; and the name aphides 
may be regarded as its plural. The aphides (or, as they are 
sometimes termed, the plant-lice), although individually in¬ 
significant, are vastly more multitudinous and very much 
more generally and minutely diffused than any other class of 
insects. It has been assumed by eminent naturalists that the 
number of tho species may exceed 1,500, although only about 
seventy species have been accurately described and scientifically 
determined ; as almost every species of plant, from the stateliest 
forest tree to tho minutest grass, is believed to be infested by an 
aphis peculiar to itself,—although many species of this insect feed 
on a wide range of different plants. Their astounding fecundity 
exceeds that of any other animal, not excepting the fish,—and is 
effectuated in a manner otherwise unknown in animal physiology. 
Bonnet, the naturalist, selected a plant-louse which he had seen 
the moment before born of a mother without wings, and placed 
it upon a leafy branch which he had carefully ascertaiucd to be 
free from the presence of any other aphis. He completely 
isolated this branch from the atmospheric air by an inverted 
glass vessel, and, commencing on the 20th day of May, watched 
this insect with a microscope hourly, from five o’clock in the 
morning till nine at night, till the first of June, when, having cast 
its skin four times, it produced a young living aphis. Within 
the following three weeks it thus produced no less than ninety- 
fivo aphides. Bazin discovered that plant-lice produced young 
without pairing, a fact which was corroborated by the researches 
of Reaumur and Trembly. Bonnet repeated his experiments, 
and found that at least five generations of the Elder plant-louse, 
and nine generaions of the Oak plant-louse could be produced 
without pairing. Lyonnet confirmed these observations, and 
Duvan watched the production of eleven generations, without 
pairing, within seven months. All the insects of these successive 
generations were females, but in autumn, when their presence 
became essential, and not before, some males were produced. 
Let the reader pause to contemplate the startling gross result 
of this fecundity. If wo reckon, with Bonnet, an increase of 
ninety females, each generation, the progressive increase will 
stand thus - 
Aphides. 
First generation. 90 
Second ditto . 8,100 
Third ditto. 729,000 
Fourth ditto . G5,010,000 
Fifth ditto. 5,904,900,000 
Ninth ditto. 350,970,489,000,000 
Dr. Richardson estimates the increase of nine generations at a 
still greater number ; but the above is quite sufficient for the 
human mind to grasp, and to account for tha rapidity with which 
a field of Turnips or Cabbages becomes converted into a field of 
aphides, Many cases have been known pf their sudden mi¬ 
gration, by myriads, from one place to another. They thus 
suddenly appear and disappear in the IIop grounds of Kent and 
Sussex. The Hop fly (Aphis humulZ ), indeed, generally disappears 
shortly after midsummer. In two years, within human memory, 
this insect has destroyed the whole Hop crop. 
“ The mother plant-lice,” says the Rural Cyclopedia, “ after a 
full generation of young aphides, becomes smaller and flatter than 
before, and in probably all instances very soon dies. Some 
species, perhaps nearly all the species of aphides, pass the winter 
only, or chiefly, in the egg state, all the perfect insects dying 
about the commencement of winter, and the progeny of the 
next year being hatched by the heat of spring. Yet, just as 
female wasps and female humble bees, after having paired in 
autumn and survived all the males, find shelter during winter, 
and remain ready to bring forth a numerous progeny in the 
spring, as many of the perfect aphides pass (lie winter in sheltered 
places, and find all the scanty nourishment which they require 
from the perennial portions of their own proper plants, or from 
plants of similar character and juices to their own. In Sweden, 
where the cold of the winter is much more severe than in England, 
the Aphis pini lives through the winter on the branches of Pines, 
and both in England and on the Continent females of the several 
classes, which feed on ligneous plants, may, by any careful and 
minute observer, be seen, in the middle of winter, in the chinks 
or cracks of the branches of trees.” “Towards the end of 
December and the beginning of January,” says Reaumur, “ I 
have seen several plant-lice on the buds of young shoots on a 
Peach tree, after some days of severo frost. These were wingless 
females, very plump, and full of young. Even species, whose 
annual plants are herbaceous, and either annual only in cultiva¬ 
tion or perennial only in the roots, seem to have little difficulty 
in temporarily accommodating themselves even in summer upon 
other plants, or in finding during winter all tho scanty nourish¬ 
ment which they require.” 
Flocks of insectivorous birds, and myriads of other insects, 
find in these aphides their natural food. The ladybirds, which 
sometimes are met with in clouds on the Kentish coast, devour 
them, in both the perfect and the larva state, depositing their eggs 
in the midst of their groups. The larva; of the (Syrpludce) wasp- 
flies feed on the Aphis brassica, which, small as it is in itself, 
is iufested by a parasite—the Ichneumon , or gauze-winged fly 
(which deposits an egg within its body, the maggot from which 
devours it) ; w'hilst the earwig lives on it almost entirely. 
We have, doubtless, in Tasmania, many aphidivorous birds and 
insects to supply the place of these, and which, it may con¬ 
fidently be anticipated, will ultimately effect their partial ex¬ 
termination. In the interim, w'e believe it will bo wise to follow 
the example of the Cabbage and Turnip growers at home, who 
never allow their ravages to prevent the cultivation of such crops. 
After all, this pest is not nearly so bad as the locust of Africa, 
the white ant of the tropics, the Hop fly, the Turnip beetle, or 
the larval of the cockchafer, or the wire-worm at home ; or tho 
Hessian fly in America. In England the aphides have very 
seldom been troublesome two consecutive seasons. — (Hobart 
Town Journal.) 
EIGHT-BAR HIVES versus SEVEN-BAR HIVES, 
AND WHAT ARE THE BEST DIMENSIONS 
FOR EACH. 
I iiate to thank Mr. Tegetmeier for his polite appreciation of 
my communications, and for the readiness with which he favours 
myself, in common with the readers of The Cottage Gakdexeb 
generally, with the results of his apiarian experience. Although 
he certainly differs from me, I think, if lie will allow me to remove 
one or two misconceptions, the difference will turn out to be more 
apparent than real. 
In the first place, it is not the size (i. e. the capacity) of bee- 
boxes which I have called in question, but whether broad and 
shallow boxes are as well adapted as narrower and deeper ones for 
the collection of honey, and the general well-doing of their in¬ 
habitants. If he will refer to the measurements of my hives, ho 
will find that both eight-bar and seven-bar boxes are nearly the 
same size, by which I mean that there are about the same number 
of cubic inches in each. In fact, after allowing for the space 
occupied by comb bars, the seven-bar box is rather the larger of 
the two. 
In the next place, he appears to have misunderstood the result 
