Year: 1879

The familiar talk of DR.. Jabez Fisher,
of Fitchburg, before the Massachusetts
State Board of Agriculture, at Hing
ham, was just such talk as farmers
need.


The first insect noticed by DR.. Fisher,
in his lecture, was the Colorado potato
beetle, DoryphorG decenlil1edta, or ten
lined beetle. Its habits are now too
well known to need description here.
The means of destroying him are at
present of the first Importance. The
doctor had tried many experiments, but
had found nothing so cheap or etfectual
as Paris green mixed with plaster, and
sprinkled over the vines during the
growing season. One pound of green
may be mixed with two hundred pounds
of plaster, and be Just as destructive as
if but half the plaster or less were used.
The main point is to get the insects to
eat of the poison, little being as sure
to kill as much. In mixing the plaster
with the green, he is careful to cover
the nose to prevent inhaling the poison;
then, by pouring a quantity upon a
sheet or other close-woven cloth, and
letting it roll over upon itself, raising
first one edge of the sheet and then the
other, he has been able to mix the ma
terials very evenly. Simply stirring
in dish is not thorough method Of
mixing. Hellebore and some other
pOisOns will destroy the insects, but the
expense is one hundred times greater,
while the danger from poisoning is no
less to the individual applying it. The
application need not be made more
than two or three times during the sea-
son under ordinary circumstances.


In the vineyard he had been some
what troubled by a steel-blue beetle,
HalticG chGlybeG or grapevine flea
beetle, an insect that appears early in
spring, and amUses himself by eating
out the center of the buds of the vine,
at the same time laying eggs for a crop
of brown slugs, which, in turn, con-
sumo the foliage. As the beetles are
found in spring most on the outer
rows, hand picking, if well followed,
will check their ravages, but the work
must be done early in the morning
while the beetles are less active than at
midday. The tent caterpillar which
builds its house in our apple trees,
though often doing an immense amount
of damage when neglected, is one of
the most easily managed insects with
which the orchardist has to contend.
Go over the orchards when the young
caterpillars are just coming from the
eggs and beginning to spin webs from
| their nests, and single stroke of the
finger drawn across the nest will roll
them out of existence. When they
first hatch, whole colony of two or
three hundred may be crushed between
the thumb and finger. leaving hardly a
stain.


The eggs of the apple-tree borer are
laid in June and July, and the larvae
are easily destroyed during the first
summer, while their work is confined
to the bark. After they enter the wood
they may be reached by cutting or by
inserting wire, but he had found a
piece Of whalebone ten inches long,
Whitfield to a point, the best thing to
follow them in their crooked paths up
the trunk. The rose bug had been 3
serious enemy to contend with on his
! grape vines. They also swarm in elO-
yer and hay fields, but do most injury
to grapes while in bloom, eating the
blossoms clean from the future punches,