, 1875-08-11

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potato, and not the bug, will be driven to the
waFi. The interests of appetite which are at
stake in the conflict are simply APPALLING. Wlth
the determination of the potato the culinary
genius of the world is Frustrated. The tn
umph of the bug is the CONSERVATION OF the
cook The Generalization Of the cook Involves
a universal loss of temper, since the seat of
good nature is the stomach, and this catastro-
.phe may bring such rumours of wars and ex-
cite such general discomfort among nations,
which find it hard to keep on peaceable terms
under the most favorable circumstances, that
Heaven only knows what and how far-reaching
the consequences may be if the worm wins.
The inWardness Of mankind shudders at the
prospect. The song of the doomed a%gricultU-
rist is fading away-fading away as be marks
the victorious and r~esistless march of his enemy
and ours. Henceforth the plebeian potato Will
be an arist0crat in the market, no longer the
sole necessity Of the poor, but the luxury Of
the ri b. Instead Of being regarded as a COM
mon vegetable aud used only as The privileged
companion of roast beef and spring lamb, it will
be digni6ed as a fruit, christened with a new
name, and constitute q whole course at the
fashionable dinner.
We should be glad to give a detailed history
of the arch enemy of mankind known as the
potato bug, but farmers have at present little
leisure to study its habits, and possibly as
little Meditation, AS a class they are not in
a particularly equable frame of mind just
now. They are smarting under the conscious
ness that they are raising a crop not for a
r%emunerative trade with city markets, but for
the unsatisfactory purpose of satisfying the
voracious a%ppetites OF an army of beetles, 1t
may be urged by sceptics that the farmer is
always in a state of chronic disoontent, and it
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fault with Old Prob than any other class Of
men. A really happy flrmer has never ex-
listed, and probably never will until some
shrewd Yankee gets q weather contract and
runs the season on commission. Bat iu the
present emergency there is a real sorrow in
which we all have an interest. The extent of
this sorrow would be batter appreciated, per-
haps, when we state the enormous capacity
for reproduction which this cunning foe, whose
name is dorypA0ra decemLneata, possesses.
1t is a curious fact, by the way, that the
more pestiferous the insect the larger seems to
be its capacity in this direction. A curious
scientist, whose mathematical development Is
astounding, tells us that an ordinarily active
pair of these ten.lined spearmen can produce
in q single season something like sixty million
lively duplicates of themselves. What a
pity that some prophetic fingers had not
eau ght the first pair, the original cause Of the
devastation of these many years and saved the
potato. But this was not to be, and now poor
little children get a penny a pint for eggs and
beetles, and drive a thriving trade ON the
misery of the farmers.
Well, tempora mutant@r, and SO have pota-
toes. Life is hardly worth having without
them. We can give up our summer vacation
and the delights of the rural brook, the fly
rod and the cloud of mosquitoes we can
part with our country cousins and bid a
tender farewell to the indispensable mother-in-
law with heroic f%ortitude, but when it comes
10 giving up potatoes we weaken, we suffer
spasms abdominal and shrink back with in
ward horror. 1t is, however, necessary that
every generation should have some disciple
nary a%fiiction, and ours seems to have as
sumed the shape Of the CHEEKY grasshopper and
the silent potato bug.