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is not overestimated.

I believe that this remedy will prove successful, if good rooters be employed, when other methods fail. Dr. Fitch has written as follows of it:

"I would recommend the placing of a temporary fence around that portion of the meadow or pasture which is so thronged with these grubs, thus for a while converting the patch into a hog pasture. The propensity of these animals for rooting and tearing up the turf, we are all aware, is for the very purpose of coming at and feeding upon the grubs and worms that are lurking therein; and who knows but that this rooting propensity, which has all along been complained of as being the most vicious and troublesome habit which belongs to swine, may after all turn out to be the most valuable and necessary to us of any of the habits with which they are endowed. but think these animals, confined upon a spot so overstocked with grubs, would in a short time ferret out and devour every one of them, leaving the soil cleansed, mellowed, manured, and well prepared for being immediately laid down to grass again, or for receiving any other rotation of crops for which the proprietor may deem the spot best adapted."

* I cannot

Mr. Walsh, formerly State Entomologist of Illinois, had equally strong faith in the value of this method of overcoming the white grub attack. After discoursing upon the great increase in the insect as observed in a few preceding years, its growing injury to young nurseries and its violent irruption upon corn, which had formerly been exempt from it, he adds,—“ I suspect that the above phenomena are to be wholly or partially attributed to the introduction of improved breeds of hogs in the place of the old, slab-sided, long-nosed prairie-rooters, and to the passage of laws compelling people to keep their hogs under fence instead of allowing them to run at large. Within the last few years such laws have been very generally passed in the Western states. Hence, I am inclined to infer that the presence of the white grub is often to be attributed to the absence of the hog."

* * *

*

Without occupying your time in a review and discussion of various other methods that have been proposed for destroying

the grub, I will refer to but one other, which I regard as an effectual one wherever it may be resorted to:

Starvation.-As soon as the attack is discovered, upon the removal of the crop, collect and burn, so far as practicable, all the vegetable material upon which the larvæ could feed. If the ground has been cultivated for vegetables, gather all the stalks, stems, vines, etc., together with the roots, in piles, and burn them. If the land be in grass, after feeding as closely as possible, plough thoroughly, and follow during the autumn with such additional ploughings and harrowings as shall best tend to destroy all vegetable life. At this time gas-lime, if procurable, should be applied. Repeat these operations in the following spring, and allow the land to lie fallow for the year. Compliance with these directions would not only starve out the white grub, but also whatever wire-worms, cut-worms, and other underground larvæ there might be present.

The fallowing of the land for an entire year may be found to be unnecessary. It is not improbable that it might be preferable that the thorough breaking up of the ground in the autumn and spring be followed with a crop of buckwheat. Wonderful efficacy has been claimed for this plant in freeing the ground from wire-worms—the larvæ of other beetles—and we know not why it may not be equally efficient when employed against the white grub. By all means let thorough tests of its value be made, since the trial is so simple. Hon. A. B. Dickenson, after experimenting with salt and lime for destroying wire-worms, has stated, I have only proved one remedy for the rascals, and that is, to break the sod and sow it to buckwheat.

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Plough late

and as often as possible in the fall, and then sow it to pease in the spring. With the like ploughing next fall, they will not disturb any crop the next season."

In England a crop of mustard is regarded as an antidote against the wire-worm. In an address before an agricultural society there, the speaker, after detailing some successful experiments upon a small scale with mustard. stated as follows: "Thus encouraged by these results, I sowed the next year a whole field of forty-two acres, which had never repaid me for nineteen years in consequence of nearly every crop being destroyed by the wire-worm; and I am warranted in stating that

not a single wire-worm could be found the following year, and the crop of wheat throughout was superior to any that I had grown for twenty-one years." Certainly this very successful experiment, confirmed as it is by many others that I find recorded, deserves to be faithfully tested with the white grub.

NEW POINTS IN ENSILAGE.

It has become a settled fact that ensilage from corn, clover, rye, millet, and other forage plants, is an important and economical element in the winter feed of our farm stock. To question it is not wise to disbelieve it is to act in opposition to the most substantial evidence.

There are, however, questions regarding it which will require study and practice. It has already been settled that much less pressure is necessary than was at first supposed, and it has also been demonstrated that cheap silos are preferable to those of stone and cement. It is desirable that they exclude the air to a good degree, but the pressure accomplishes this object, and often is so great as to force the atmosphere out of all except the edges of the mass. There has been much discussion relative to the length at which the forage should be cut. The shorter, the more compact, and the better the preservation. But whole plants of corn have been packed away in the silo, and put under even a medium pressure, and come out in winter in a fine state of preservation.

It has been supposed that there must be especial haste in putting the material into the pit; but we have known parties that extended the storage over several days, and experienced no bad result. In fact, better ensilage is believed to have been produced by the slow process. From a paper on this topic, by Prof. Miles of the Massachusetts College of Agriculture, we take a record of his experience, greatly abridging his original

draft.

That there are great differences in the quality of the ensilage made on different farms, or even in that made on the same farm

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