somewhat thinned in ranks by my unceasing war, would be re-enforced from
a neighbor's fields, once actually fording my lakelet to get to my
precious potato patch. The number and variety of devouring pests
connected with each vegetable are alarming. Here are a few connected
closely with the homely cabbage, as given by a noted helminthologist
under the head of "Cut-worms":

"Granulated," "shagreened," "white," "marked," "greasy," "glassy,"
"speckled," "variegated," "wavy," "striped," "harlequin," "imbricated,"
"tarnished." The "snout beetle" is also a deadly foe.

To realize this horror, this worse than Pharaoh plague, you must either
try a season of farming or peruse octavo volumes on Insects injurious to
Vegetation, fully illustrated.

In those you may gain a faint idea of the "skippers," "stingers,"
"soothsayers," "walking sticks or specters," "saw flies and slugs,"
"boring caterpillars," "horn-tailed wood wasps," etc., etc., etc., etc.,
etc.--a never-ending list. The average absolute loss of the farmers of
this country from such pests is fully one million dollars per annum.

Gail Hamilton said of her squashes:

"They appeared above-ground, large-lobed and vigorous. Large and
vigorous appeared the bugs, all gleaming in green and gold, like the
wolf on the fold, and stopped up all the stomata and ate up all the
parenchyma, till my squash-leaves looked as if they had grown for the
sole purpose of illustrating net-veined organizations. A universal bug
does not indicate a special want of skill in any one."