The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-03-21
Bill Nye as an Agriculturist.

During the past season l was con-
siderably interested in agriculture.
l met with some success, but not
enough to madden me with joy. 1t
takes good deal of success to I'M
screw my reason and make it totter
on its throne. I've had trouble with
my liver, and various other abnor-
NAL conditions of the vital organs, but
old reason sits there on his or her
throne, as the case may be, through
it all.
Agriculture has a charm about it
which l cannot adequately describe.
Every product of the farm is furnish
ed by nature with something that
loves it, so that it will never be neg
lected. The grain crop is loved by
the weevil, the Hessian fly, and the
chinch bug; the watermelon, the
squash and the cucumber are loved
by the squash bug; the potato is low
ed by the potato bug; the sweet corn
is loved by the ant, thou sluggard;
the tomato is loved by the cut.worm;
the plumb is loved by the curculio,
and so forth, and so forth so that no
plant that grows need be wall flow
er. Early blooming and extreme
ly d arr joke for the table. Plant as
soon as there is no danger of frosts in
drills four inches apart. When ripe.
pull it, and eat raw with vinegar,
The red ants may be added to taste.
Well, l began early to spade up
my angle worms and other pets, to
see if they had withstoOd the severe
winter. L found they had. They
were unusually bright and cheerful.
The potato bugs were little slug
gish at first, but as the spring opened
and the ground warmed up they
pitched right in, and did first rate.
Every one of my bugs in May looked
splendidly. [ was most worried
about my cut worms. Away along
in April l had not seen a cut worm,
and began to fear they had suffer-
ed, and perhaps persisted in the ex-
IRENE cold of the previous winter.
One morning late in the month,
however, / saw cut worm come
out from behind a cabbage stump,
and take off his ear-muff. He was "a
little stiff in the joints. but he had
not lost hope. I saw at once now
was the time to assist him if had
spark of humanity left. 1 searched
every work l could find on agricul-
ture to find out what it was that far
mers fed their blamed cut worms,
but all scientists seemed to be silent.
l read the agricultural reports, the
dictionary, The encyclopaedia, but
they did't thow any light on the sub
ject. got wild. L feared that had
brought but one cut worm through
the winter, and 1 was liable to lose
him unless l could find out what to
feed him. l asked some of my
neighbors, but they spoke jeeringiy
and sarcastically. | know now how
it was. All their cut worms had
frozen down last winter, and they
could't bear to see me get ahead.
All at once, an idea struck me.
havn't recovered from the conclusion
yet. 1t was this: The worm had
wintered under a cabbage stock; no
doubt he was fond of the beverage
l acted upon this thought and bought
him two dozen red cabbage plants, at
fifty cents a dozen. | had hit it the
first pop. He was passionately fond
of those plants, and would eat three
in one night. He also had several
matinees and sour krout lawn festi-
walls for his friends, and in week 1
bought three dozen more plants. BY
this time 1 had collected large
group of common scrub cut worms,
early Swedish cut worms, dwarf
Hubbard cut worms, and short.horn