For the New England Farmer.
THE ARMY WORM.

ashes handy, and scattered some in front of the worms, and wet them with my sprinkler; these they marched over, so I scattered more and left I discovered the army worm in the town of them dry; those puzzled the worms, and they "leftWayland, Mass., October 12, 1861, on a small faced" and started around. I let a few pass, and place owned and occupied by Hon. Edward Mel-headed off the remainder with ashes, scattering len. I was somewhat astonished to find them in them entirely around the regiment. When the such numbers at that late season, so watched their motions closely.

Upon making inquiry in the vicinity, I found but few persons who had noticed them, and they were not aware that the "army worm" was in their neighborhood. I had seen a kind of greenish-grey worm, striped with black, and it had eaten considerably the last of the season, but there were so many new things, I did not notice it particularly. I searched the adjoining fields, but could find no specimens except in Judge Mellen's case; then the question arose, how came so many on this particular piece of ground, and not one in the adjoining fields? I can answer this question in a satisfactory manner, to myself, at least.

The piece of land in question contained two acres, and was bounded on the north-east and south by rising land covered with fruit and forest trees, and on the west by a small pond of water, and a large tract of meadow. A half-acre of this land was "made land," flat, and composed of sand and muck, making a soil three feet deep, and but a little above the level of the pond. Part of this flat was cultivated, or had potatoes planted on it, but for want of care, witch grass was the cultivated crop, and the army worm was trying to set man an example by destroying it. The remainder was mowing, and the thick aftermath offered the worms food by day, and a warm covering by night, until they were compelled to seek their winter quarters. A person who has never studied entomology, will hardly believe insects capable of reasoning, as I shall endeavor to show these worms

were.

forward company came to the ashes the second time, they delegated a reconnoitering party that went the rounds and fell into place, where they remained and froze to death that night. I tried to bring them to life, but could not. The ones I let pass, steered directly for the camp. The weather was winterish from that time, and they all disappeared. I searched for them several days, and finally found them packed away around the edge of the pond; they laid from eight to fourteen inches deep, and from the water back six feet. There was about four rods in length occupied by them, and they were about the same distance from the water.

Some began to wind up after three weeks, and others I think will remain dormant, as they are not fully grown, and didn't seem inclined to change their coats for fashion's sake. In the Agricultural Report of Ohio for 1860, second series, p. 350, is an able article by J. Kirkpatrick, who thinks the natural habitat of the worm is the wild swamp grasses; and I have no doubt, from what I have observed, that they always go to some such place as the ones above spoken of, to winter, and that ashes scattered around them in quantities, will keep them in check, and dry ashes will kill them, if properly applied. Dry slaked lime is as good as ashes. D. J. KINNEY.

Wayland, Jan. 1, 1862.

AUTUMN OR WINTER MANURING THE BEST.be secured, where cattle and other animals are kept Nearly all the benefits of autumn manuring may I found them gathered around near the pond, in in stables or warm basements, by drawing out the great numbers--but the weather held mild for sev- manure during the comparatively leisure time of eral days, and they scattered in search of food-winter, and spreading it at once on the land. The October 20th, I found some in a field fifty rods from the pond, or their camp ground. I discovered them feeding on the second crop of oats about 11 A. M, and at 14 P. M., they were all headed homeward; there were a few days colder weather, and they stopped in camp; but when there came a warm day, they sallied forth in companies in the warmest part of the day, and back to their camp ground before night. After the potatoes were dug, they crossed the dug over ground, and camped nearer the pond on grass ground, passing and re-passing in regular order, several companies abreast, and several deep. I examined them with a lantern, and found them lying in the same order, with a space about their length-11 inches-between the companies.

winter rains, whenever they occur, and all the spring rains, will give it a thorough washing, and carry the liquid into the soil; but such places must be selected for this purpose as will not favor the accumulation of water into brooks or streams, and thus carry off the manure altogether. Grass lands are much the best for this treatment, by tending to retain the manure. Nothing is better for gardens that are to be enriched for spring crops, than autumn or winter application of manure; and newly planted trees, dwarf pears, strawberry beds, &c., receive a great deal of protection against cold by such coatings, which are to be turned in, in spring. Country Gentleman.

OUR NEW OFFICE.-Our friends will please noNovember 11th, I was setting Antwerp rasp-tice that we have removed the office of the Farberries about 20 rods from the camp ground; at 11 A. M., I left 10 stools with 40 stalks to a mer to No. 100 Washington Street, up stairs, and stool that I had not headed in; there was about directly over A. Williams & Co.'s Bookstore. The one foot of top covered with green leaves, and location is central, and cannot be far from most when I returned at 124 P. M., the leaves were points where those who wish to call will have busigone, and the stalks were covered with army ness to transact when they come to the city. We worms. On my appearance, they all dropped off

from the stalks and started for home, all in the have a pleasant room, and shall be glad to have same direction and order, some forward and others a few moments' chat with any of our friends who backward, turning on the road. I had some wood may be pleased to call.

a number of large milch cows in excellent condition through the winter, on an average of nine cents per day. He also stated that with more economical arrangements-which his experience had suggested, but which he had not put into practice he thought he could keep them well for even less than that sum.

will do well to call at the warehouse we have mentioned, and look at one for themselves. As Mr. Quincy states in his note, it is called "Prindle's Patent Agricultural Boiler and Steamer," and consists of two or three sizes.

WEALTH OF OLD ROMANS. According to Cicero, the debts of A. Milo Julius Caesar, when setting out for Spain, is reamounted to above $28,000,000, federal currency; ported to have said to himself, he was $10,000,000 worse than nothing. When he first entered Rome, after crossing the Rubicon, he took from the public treasury $5,500,000, but at the end of chased the friendship of Curio with a bribe of over the civil war put over $24,000,000 in it. He pur$2,500,000, and of the Consul L. Paulus, with half that sum.

In looking at the great variety of agricultural implements and machinery, recently, in the rooms of Messrs. PARKER, GANNETT & OSGOOD, on Blackstone Street, our attention was attracted to a cauldron, or steamer, for cooking food for stock, and in which we became considerably interested. While looking at it, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, of Quincy, came in, who stated that he had been using one of them for several months, and had ordered a second one of larger size. He is wintering some eighty cows, and in using this boiler in direct connection with them, we thought his opin-000, and about as much in money, furniture and ion of their value would enable us to judge pretty Lentulus, the augur, over $16,000,000. Augustus slaves. Seneca was worth over $20,000,000. correctly of its merits. It is as follows: raised by the testaments of his friends over $161,000,000. Tiberius left at his death nearly $100,000,000, which Caligula spent in less than one he required for the support of the State over year; and Vespasian, at his succession, said that $1,614,000,000. Nevertheless, though greatly enriched by his conquests, imperial Rome never

Boston, Nov. 28, 1861.

DEAR SIR:-"Prindle's Patent Agricultural Boiler and Steamer," has been used on my farm, daily, for at least six months, and has given entire satisfaction. As a cheap generator of steam, it appears to me to merit the high eulogiums that are contained in the printed certificates appended I am very truly,

to the advertisements.

JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.

Croesus was worth in real estate over $8,000,

came into the full inheritance of the chief wealth of the East, and the larger quantity of the precious metals must have remained excluded from the calculations of ancient historians.-Life Illustrated.

Since the receipt of that letter, we have seen this BOTS-PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.-In steamer in operation, and it seemed to possess the winter of 1850, I was passing through Vermany points of value over any other cheap arrange-mont, and stopped for the night at an old farmer's ment that we have seen. It had cooked a barrel by the name of David Ruggles. The next mornof pumpkins into "squash," and was then steaming a lot of cut hay. Dr. EBEN. WIGHT, of Dedham, on whose farm we saw it in operation, states that it operates efficiently and cheaply; that it is easily managed, and requires little fuel, compared with the common stove cauldrons.

It seems to us that its merits must be full as

prominent in the house of the farmer, as connected with the barn. Where there are cans to be washed, or milk-pans, or hot water wanted for feeding swine or slaughtering them, it must be exceedingly convenient. So in washing clothes, warming baths, or cooking vegetables in large quantities as they are obliged to in hotels. It is unlike the kettle, as it can be made to cook at any desired point, in any convenient wooden vessel at hand, which is steam tight, by the use of a flexible tube or pipe. It is impossible to burn the substance being cooked or heated. It dispenses with all cleaning of kettles for every separate job, unless the top is removed, and it is used as a common kettle for trying out lard, making soap, boiling clothes, or any of the usual purposes of a kettle.

We think those needing an article of this nature,

ing one of my horses was suffering severely from an attack of the bots. A large dose of sage tea, made very strong, and sweetened with molasses, caused them to relax their hold, and I was soon enabled to pursue my journey. Before doing so my host informed me that he kept salt and ashes constantly before his horses, and said he thought it was a sure preventive.

Thinking it worthy of trial, upon my arrival home I rigged a box in each of my stalls, and put salt and ashes in equal proportion in them. Since then I have had a great many different horses, but have not had occasion to doctor for bots. Of course, I am not certain that the above prevented the bots, but I have no doubts on the subject.

It is harmless and cheap, and is worthy a trial by every one that keep horses.-Country Gentle

man.

"Horticola," in the Horticulturist, states that he succeeded, perfectly, in grafting a scion of the tomato upon the potato vine. He cut about onethird of the potato shoot off, just above a leaf, taking care not to injure the bud at its base. The scion, being shielded from the sun, was every day sprinkled with a little water, and it took readily. In the fall the tomato was loaded with ripe and unripe fruit, and had grown to a large size.

GRAFTING THE TOMATO ON THE POTATO.—

MR. EDITOR: The statement is often made that a certain newspaper article, or a certain market report, is worth the whole cost of a year's subscription. This is doubtless very true. I think, myself, that some articles from the pen of the editor or associate editor of the Farmer, are worth tions, and your good opinion of the Farmer. the price of the paper, and yet it does not always follow, by any means, that every one can afford to pay for it. Some farmers, who are deeply in debt, feel that they can hardly afford to expend any thing that does not promise a speedy return in money value.

In fruit we have suffered in common with all Those whose business it is to report the state New England. I wish some of your contributors of the markets, cannot be too fully aware of their would tell us why there was such a dearth of fruit responsible position. They act in an important last season. Apples, pears and grapes, next to sense as agents for the whole community. How none; cherries, peaches, plums, none. Was it the desirable that those agents be so reliable as to give cold? A large orchard in my neighborhood prono just cause for the remark sometimes made, that "we can tell nothing by the papers."

ground, while one old shrub, which had for a long

WINTER CARE OF STOCK. time been battling between life and death, bore a In a climate so variable as that of New Engdozen fine quinces. Peaches are among the things land, where the extremes of the temperature that were. We shall raise no more until our sea- sometimes range from forty degrees above zero to sons change. There is reason to fear that cherries will follow in their wake. We have had none for two seasons, and most of the trees give signs of approaching dissolution.

But enough of this. We have other and more formidable foes than the weevil, the curculio, the borer, and even Jack Frost himself. The vermin which have poisoned our political atmosphere are now boring into the roots of the tree of liberty, and stripping it of its foliage. Our farms should not be neglected, and need not be; but the principal energies of the whole loyal portion of our people should be concentrated upon this vilest and most formidable enemy of the body politic. Amherst, Jan. 7, 1862.

THE PUZZLED WREN.

twenty degrees below, within twenty-four consecutive hours, it becomes us to provide a pretty thorough shelter for the animals who depend upon us, as well as for ourselves. Stock may be kept out of doors all winter, or in cold and cheerless barns, and come out in the spring looking well,— but it must always be at the considerable cost of a large additional amount of nutritive food over what would have been required, if the stock had been warmly housed.

The body of an animal may be compared to a stove,-place it in an ordinarily tight room, and half a dozen pounds of fuel will heat its sides red hot; but when set out in the open air, where cold currents are constantly sweeping from its sides I was sitting one June morning at the open win- the heat imparted to them by the fuel, two or dow of a pleasant country-house, when I observed three times six pounds will scarcely heat it too a busy wren flying back and forth through the hot for the hand to rest upon it. The food which thick boughs of a large English cherry tree, bringing bits of wood and grass to the little round hole the animal eats imparts heat to the system somewhich she had made in the bottom of the tree, for thing as the fuel does to the stove. We find a a place, I suppose, to hide her nest in. After a few words to the point in the Tribune. "Farmers while she came lugging a burden that looked do not pay sufficient attention to the warmth of heavy enough for two wrens. She had been to the wood-pile, and picked up a stick longer than she their stock, but suffer them to roam about in the was, and I watched her as she flew up to the hole open air, exposed to the inclement weather. The with it, and attempted to go in just as she had amount of exercise is another most important done with her other sticks and bits. I laughed to point to attend to. The more an animal moves see how puzzled she was when her burden butted about, the quicker it will breathe, and the more against the sides, and pushed her back from the entrance. She tried it again and again with the starch, gum, sugar, fat, and other respiratory elesame result, fluttering up to the hole, knocking ments it must have in its food; and if an additionthe stick against the sides, and then obliged to al quantity of these substances is not given to supflutter back again. It was very rude in the un-ply the increased demand, the fat and other parts gainly twig, she seemed to think, and the little lady actually looked as if she felt insulted. I almost expected to see her give it up; but no. Fastening her feet firmly on the edge of the opening, she placed the stick perpendicularly, and tugged with all her might to thrust it through, but in vain; then she turned it and tried it horizontally, but it would not go in. At last she tried it

endwise, and I could not help clapping my hands as it slid to the bottom of the nest, and the little bird hopped in after it, with a kind of provoked triumph in her manner, as if she said, "What a fool! Why didn't I know that before ?"

of the body will be drawn upon, and the animal will become thinner; also, as before observed, every motion of the body produces a corresponding destruction of the muscles which produce that motion. It is, therefore, quite evident that the more the animal moves about, the more of the

heat-producing and flesh-forming principle it must receive in its food. Hence, we see the propriety of keeping our cattle in sheds and yards, and not suffering those (particularly which we intend to fatten) to rove about, consuming more food, and wasting away more rapidly the various tissues of the body already formed, and making it more expensive and difficult to fatten them."

MANUAL OF AGRICULTURE.-We learn that this work is already largely called for by the towns in Massachusetts, to be placed in their schools. One We are perfectly aware of the fact, that it is altown has ordered two hundred copies, another one together easier to sit and talk about what is best hundred, and many others twenty-five to fifty to be done, than it is to do the thing itself, or to copies each. We learn, also, that where it has furnish the "ways and means" of doing it. Nevbeen introduced, the pupils, both boys and girls, ertheless, we believe a tolerably warm place can be are delighted with the study. We supposed that provided for stock in seven cases out of ten among such would be the case. Our youth will readily the farmers, and that without the aid of a carpencomprehend the importance to them of such a ter! We were strongly reminded of this the othstudy-a study that is always highly pleasing, er dav, while visiting a very old barn, by observwhile it instructs. ing how completely the arrangement of the hay, a