Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1877-08-08

nc Turns to anu DulluS pleCe VI oloHc
wall. Building stone wall is more ex-
citing then playing billiards, for there
is more variety to it. Amateur bill
lards always reminds me Of the itch,
there is so much scratch to it, but
building stone wall is diversified
something to do all the time, like
catching heas
No enc can realize the charm Of
digging round big rock, and getting
a chain under it, and twltching. it onto
a drag, or of getting crowbar under
it and lifting and straining on it,
enough to strain the whole Atlantic
ocean, and then of having the bar slip,
and the stone roll back, barking a
shin, or otherwise bruising you, while
you plunge forward with force enough
to drive your head into the ground. l
say no one can realize the charm OF
this, unless he has sat on a fence. as |
have, aud seen it done.
The bug problem TO the farmer is
stupendous one. 1t amounts to more
to Il small farmer than it does to the
biggest hotel proprietor i'll the coun-
try A good smart chambermald,
and bottle of double B poison, will
fix bed so that you can plant man
at 8 o'clock at night and have to haul
him out of bed with a steam tug in
the morning, he will sleep so soundly.
The potato bug Is native Of the
West. He originated in the canons
of Colorado, and may be called an off
shoot of that section. The State is
rammed full aud loaded down with
them. Trey formerly lived on wild
plants, but one of them went up to
Denver on a little pleasure trip, and at
the hotel there he had some tried po.
tatoes, and they struck him as being
about the best thing to quiet hunger
he had ever lighted on. He went
home and advised his brethren to go
East, and they simply packed up a
few collars and change of clothing
and started. The potato bug dawns
on the farmer very rapidly he sees
his potatoes nicely up, their green
tops reminding him that potatoes in
the fall at II dollar q bushel are better
than serpent's tooth or thaukless
child, and he goes to bed dreaming of
wealth pouring in on hIm in furrows,
and the next morning he visits MS
field, and sees some red spots on the
potato vines, about as big as pin
heads He notices that they give
rather gentee look to the leaf. In
a day or two h. sees these red drops
begin to grow, and then to crawl, and
in three or four days he goes out and
is 80 surprised at what he sees that
you could not paint his look OF aston
ishment, nor even prime it over one
coat with less than bucket of paint.
He sees that the potato bug has ar
rived, and has brought his whole fam
ily and all his wte's 500 friends. He
is there with ali his to lis and lmpli,
ments of labor. He sees a bug about
as large as the letter o, when it drops
from the lips of a small boy, as he IN.
cautiously sits down on an adult bull
thistle. He sees this bug laid off in
stripes endwise, like the marks of a
gridiron on a slice of broiled liver. lie
sees that what the bug lacks in size
he gains in quantity, He is there
and keeps coming. lie has as much
mouth in proportion to his length as
the Amazon river or Soldene. He
can beat horsehy laying eggs, and
l have seen them do the job at the
rate of twelve miles an hour. Ten
days from the time on egg is laid it
has been hatched, married, and is the
mother of eleven hundred and thirty
two grandchildren.
: The only sure way to get rid of the
potato bug is to move off somewhere
else. There are a number of methods
that work somewhatly. One man SET
up steam trip hammer on his farm,
and hired a halfgrown Sunday School
to catch the bugs and run them under
the hammer. After trying this Il
week he found that rs the nights grew
longer the bugs gained on him, aud
he gave it up. Next to English spar
rows, there is nothing that Increases
faster than potato bugs, unless It's the
interest on an unpaid note.
A farmer told me that he tried Paris
green on his bugs. fle said he'd be
+ hanged if he didn't use up about a
barrel of the stuff and the bugs ate it
all up, and in two or three days they
set up a store in the corner of the field