Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

THE WASHINGTON GAZETTE BY JAS. A. WRIGHT AND HUGH WILSON. THE WASHINGTON GAZETTE. TERMS.—Thre« Dollar* • year iu &d?aoce. | No Subscription* Ukeu for * shorter ime than b«x months. ■ — ■ - j THE SEVENTEEN YEAR LOCUSTS. This is the year for the appearance of the famous Seventeen Year locusts in this district, and immense numbers have al ready emerged from their underground sfortranmation place. It is one of our mo»t interesting insects, and excites curi osity, wherever it is seen. There is no fact better established than that it occurs only, in general, every se venteen years, and hence iu popular name; its scientific cognomen is cicada septends cim. It has no affinity with the ‘‘locust” of Scripture, that destructive animal being a grasshopper. The development of this species of Cicada has been caiefully observed through alt its various stages and it requires that period of lima to undergo its transforma tion, and thus requires a longer time to come to maturity, than any other insect known. There is some reason to believe, that in the South, below 83 degrees of latitude, tbe cicada every thirteen years, but this potto*, ba* fit yet been sat isfactorily settled. It is indigenous to this country, and oc curs nowhere else in the world. The head is furnished with a snout, which forms a sheath for three small hairs, which are very fine and flexible, means of which the insect, both inLia oryaalis, and perfect state, matter fi .mi ti.-- .|a|i ■ jH JR ; H ‘ bpl lljt , ./ : ■ ■■ ji.irtinns ot tli" thus form taws, sur faces are cut iu the manner aud supply the place of rasps. The centre pieoe js a tube, with two sharp protecting points above aud below the orifices. The eggs are laid in the twigs of Igee* after the fol lowing fashion: The females select thagreen living limbs of trees and shrubs, of about the size of tbeir own bodies. They take every kind of trees except the pine and other tere bintbinate species, and it matters not how hard the wood. Having selected the twig, the insect raises her body considerably, extends the ovipositor, and presses its point against the bark, piercing it with the point of the centre piece. This puncture is large enough to admit the point of one of tbe side pieces, or sawß, which is immediately thrust in, aDd a regular, quick sawing op eration is commenced, until the incision is Isrge enough to admit the other Bide piece, which also begins to saw, the centre piece remaining fixed, and serving as a guide. As soon as tbe blade part of the instrument i* fairly inserted, say tbe 12ib part of an inch in length, the insect presses upon the end of it attached to her body, aud thus by tbe action of a lever raises the ends of the divided fibres of the wood. After considerable very curious work, which you have not room for me to specify, she reinserts the instrument to the full length, and deposits two eggs from tbe oviduct or centre piece. She then with draws it, and again immediately reinserts it depositing two more eggs. Thus she proceeds uutil she has deposited from ten to twenty. Tbe eggs are uniformly set m two rows, close together. Fifteen or twen ty excavations of the same kind are made on the same limb, and each female lays from four hundred to five hundred eggs. These mustard seed-shaped eggs require over fifty days for hatching and about that time there comes out of each a little worm with six legs, a snout, claws, and feelers. It must take food, but where will tbe infant worm find it I Surely not up on the tree! and its mother is not there to tell it what to do. She died long agOj and this little orphan is left to “hoe his own row,” or rather, to grub out his own tunnel. Now, who tells it what to do? £or we shall see it does precisely what is right. Soon after it is hatched, it falls from the limb to the ground, of its own accord, which descent does uot injure it; but so soon as it reaches the etftth it starts off on a short tour among the herbage and fibrous matter of tbe surface soil. It is blind, and we may well conceive the inu tility of eyea to an insect destined to live seventeen years under ground. Nature is too economical in her favors to render such a superfluous service. It soon insinuates itself among tbe fibrous roots of tbe her bage, below the surface, upon tbe succulent juices of which it feeds by means of the very small hairs of the snout, wiping tip the small particles of moisture, as with a brush, and thus bringing the fluid into the orifice of tbe tube of the snout. It lives during the remainder of the warm season in the vegetable subsoil. On the approach of the cold season it fortfts around itself a cell, by cementing particles of earth together, and in this cell it re mains for another season, and thus it cou dimes Irotn year to year. It opana ita cell in summer to gain access to tender roots, each year enlarging its cell a> it grows in size, n deeded* deeper, atfcording to the character Os t>f**»>, eumelinies as deep as two, or even four lest. It remaina ill this cell until the time haa come for it to emerge to tks ttwface, and finally cones l,jti tß\the obrysaHs form, which if soon hardened bK.th» on a fence, shra-#*netijcand “sV'fr open on .1 and t’ 0 ® 1 * *>»“ been sent Sand wf* the back, and nd ,.._ tt Tery pointßd reflefli^ rnnt‘* ability to inquired great ?nun(Jav..e b rush into tbe Mississippi, all at once.Ulß | the lied and tbe Arkansas, w tb» Tennessee and the Cumberland, or, wbst ia still worse, from the Ohio and the Missouri; the levees of Louisiana could not with stand tbe overwhelming floods ; the Lower Mississippi would become, what it is in deed too often, sn inland soa. How slight a change it would inquire in the beds of the Ohio and Tennessee to send tbeir wa lers to the Gulf of Mexico* through Ala bama 1 How slight an elevation of the earth, also, to bring tbe waters of the Mis nouri to the Gulf through Texas ! Either I of which would completely change the physics and dynamics of the Lower Miss- issippi. As it is, the grand detour of the Ten nessee, from Northern Alabama to South ern Illinois, retards the floods frong the southwestern Alleghanies, until those from the southeastern spurs of the Rocky Moun tains have reached the sea. That still gi-ander detour of tbe main Missouri, by which it is made to run first northward then sweep eastward, and lastly, with an other magnificent curve, flow away in a southwestern direction to the Mississippi, by a route some two thousand miles lon ger lh»3 in a straight line from the head waters of the Yellowstone to St. Louis, keeps back the mighty floods of the Mis souri until the Ohio and the Upper Miss issippi have exhausted tbeir strength. When all the otber great tributaries of the Mississippi have spent tbeir force when spring and its rains are past and the summer sun blazes with intolerable heat when water ia wanted to float steamboats, barges, and flatboats, for evaporation, for rain and dew—when tbe navigation of the Mississippi is about to fail, and the bar vests are in peril—more than twelve hun dred milee of rivers and melted snows have been accumulating in this grand nor thern arch of tbe Yellowstone and Upper Missouri. At last the northernmost point WASHINGTON, WILKES COUNTY, GA., FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1868. is unlocked by thl heat of tbe advancing sun, and then comes down, perhaps in May, oftener in June, and sometimes io July, but always at least forty days later than if by the valley of tbe Platte er the Kansas, the “June Rise” of the Missouri, “a name of grsndeor, of joy. of activity!; of wealth, of harvests, to all the dweller*’ on the stream, from the Gulf of Mexico to tbe far off British line of the north* west.” As you steam .up the Low< fl.ssissipphj you would Sky that these bo lands autf swamps, those dank and Ih.- tv fields, were die very 1 ~®e of malaria—Hie rjendezvoir-' of miasrt > You could not be more nit}| takqn. «' , for epidemics, wbiob it is fey! no nieWN impossible to avoid, New Or leans is as healthy as Bostou, Louisiana as healthy as Massachusetts. Dip up a glass of water from this turbid Mississippi in the month of June, sometimes far into tbe month of July—it will be cool and re-i freshing, it was iced a few weeks ago iu Dakota. Wbat a splendid illustration, too, the Mississippi and its tributaries afford of the eternal HiuomoT things, and of the law that no great human want epriugs into ex. istekee without the means being supplied at bend by Providence to fill it 1 Our ancestors had no sooner readied, in their toilsowae march of civilization, the crest o! the Alleghauios, than the tributaries of the Mississippi invited them to glide down to richer and broader dominions than they had ever had cooceptMto of. No sooner had Jefferson vas^erritory of 1 tor which the government soon after made an offer of *1,000,000. Parson Browulow bad written a savage work in the defence of slavery, and was challenging Northern elergyraon to dispute its divine authority. Gerrit Smith Dr. Howe, Henry Ward Beech er, tbo saints at Oborlin, and a sow hundred others, were dcing a quiet and limited business over the under ground railway. John Brown bad not yet left bis farm in tbo Northern wild. ... an obscure individual remembered by a few as having once represented Sangamon District 111 , in in the Houso, and opposed in tbo Mex ican war in awkward, ingenious, and extremely unpopular argument, re ceived a tew complimentary votes for Vice-President, in competition with Mr. Dayton, the nominee. Captain u. 8. Grant, hardly suspected of be ing an ex-army officer by those who bought molasses or cordwood of bim, was generally taken for a steamboat captain, temporally stranded by a stress of ill lnek, or who bad hardly the reqeisite energy and pluck to succeed in a businuss calling for so much of those qualities, and who had therefore, collapsed speculator in sun dries. * W. T. Sherman was teaching school in Louisiana. Generals Sick les, Butler, and Logan were roagh and tumble Democratic lawyers of some notoriety. Two of the most promi nent and promising officers of our lit tle army were Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson and Lieatenant Colonel Ro bert E. Lee. Brief as is the period since then, we have but two men in official life—Mr. Seward and Mr Chase —whose prominence has not (either been created or overthrown du ring this eventful epoch. REMEDIES FOR RUST AND MILDEW. BY 8. KDWARD3 TODD. Nature has furnished sovereign remed'ea for almost every defection in the cultivate j of small fruits, pears and apples and cere . j grain. Noxious insects which make ra*„,l ges on grain, fruit and vegetables, may be headed off or exterminated in most instan ces with a little persevariug labo>,and thus save the crop. Iu some install,'insects that are injurious to vegetation, are so large *nd numerous that they cannot ba repelled t—they must be exterminated by 'physical yrce. The tent-caterpillars, for -example, which are at this season of the year tee-t --ag on the leaves ol fruit trees, mnst b. destroyed by manual force. They cannot ba repelled by offensive nostrums. Yet, by zeroising proper watchfulness for a few •■•ara over fruit-trees, every worm may soon be exterminated. If every worm be crushed before it is allowed to deposit eggs for future brood, the fate of such intruders 'dll soon be fixed. Not only the nests ol 'vormj-should be destroyed, but the wan rfpering which seem to bs alone -yhese are the ones that propagate their face by layiug their eggs. Touching mildew, rust, scab in fruit packs and all defections of this character there seems to be a complete remody with in the reach of every cultivator of the soil. Many poraologists contend that mildew of the grapevine is an atmosphere* d »%j. ticn which cannot be oured. Grapes i iiijl *? rust. If composed chiefly of musk and light mate rial—spread a dressing of the best clay that can he obtained around the trees, as far as the branches extend, and hoe it into the soil. The foregoing materials, in con nection with some other fertilizers, will not fail to produce the desired result in devel oping bountiful crops. The foregoing considerations will bold good, as a rule, under ordinary circumstan ces. tfj for example, fruit-trees or vines be planted in a cold and uncongenial soil, which, instead of being lively as an onion bed, is as heavy and clammy as putty in damp weather, or as bard as the beaten track of the highway in dry weather, tbe first remedy would be thorough iinder praining. Standing water is poisonous to all fruit-tries, grape-vines, and growing plants of cereal grain. New and Cheap Paint. —More im. pervious to the weather than common paint. Take of uuslacked lime a sufficient quan lily to make two gallons ol whitewash; mix it with a due quantity of water; add to if two and a half pounds of brown sugar and about two ounces of salt. This, when applied as j paint, becomes perfectly hard and glossy. By mixing lampblack, a beau tiful lead-color can be bad; a yellow with yellow oclne’or a red with Veoitian red —all of which are verpeheap. This paint answers capitally for fences and out-door houses. Whatever storms bs rising, whatever winds may howl and rags, if the barometer of prayer be rising we may look, ere long for calm and eumrner weather. A firm faith is‘the best theology ; a , good fire the best philosophy ; a clear con science the best law ; honesty the best obey; and temperance the beat physic THE PIGEONS ADVICE. “I shall r.ever know this long les son,” said .George Nelson. “I wish ■ tboro we: no such books, tbon I 1 wouldn’t *vo to get lessons from thorn ” “What's the matter, George?” ask ed his grandma, who at that momeDt entered the room. “O this lesson, grandma, I'm sure 1 can’t get it. Just look both of these long colums, and l don’t know one word." ‘‘Well never mind that; you will soon know every word of it if you try right hard. And then only think ■how mnch more yon will know than you do now. I wonder if my white pigeon couldn’t help you to get your lesson ?” “Your pigeon, grandma; I didn’t know you bad any pigeons.” “No, I haven’t now; but when I was a vory little girl my brother had a pair of beautiful whito pigeon’s pre sented to him. He told me I might call ono of tbem mine. They were both very tamo, and they would eat corn from our hands. What pleased us both was, that they seemed to know us both, for my brothers pigeon would go’and take corn out of his hand, while mine] always came to me. YfalUl was going to tell you how J bli" 1 ? lessons.” Hklmt, is ginned on any other (ijdH straw at a timo. My lessiiOiariOt seem near so long as it did at first. In a few moments I knew the whole of it.” “Mv lesson looks easier alroady, grandma. I shall only] havo to loam ono word at a trme, and I’ll soon know all of them.” George set to work in good earnest, and but a short time Jhad passed till he had loarned it perfectly. “Now, George,” said his grandma, afterward, “do you think you will re member the pigeon’s advice?” “O, I am sure I shall,” ho replied, laughing, “and when I coma to the longest words, I'll do as the pigeon did when the straw fell—l’ll try them again \ * “Go ox, Sib, Go ox !”—Arsgo, in his Autobiography, tells us that his “roaster in mathematics” was a word or two of ad vice which he found in the binding of one of his textbooks. Puzzled and discour aged by the-diffiiculties lie met with in his early studies, he was almost ready to give over the pursuit. Soma, words which he found on the waste-leaf, used to stiffen tbe cover of his paper bound text-book, caught his eye, and interested him. “Impelled,” ho says, “by an indefinite curiosity, I dampened the cover of the book, fund carefully unrolled the leaf, to see what was on the other side. It prov- ed to he a short letter from D’Alembert to a young person disheartened, like myself, by the difficulties of mathematical study, and who had written to him for counsel. Go‘ on, sir, go on!’ was the counsel which D’Alembert gave him; ‘the difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you ad vance. proceed* and light will dawn and shine with increased clearness on your VOL. Ill—NO. 16. path - ’ That maxim,” continues Arago, “was my greatest Inkster iu mathematics.” Following out theee simple words, “Go on’sir, go on I’’ made him the first atro* nominal mathematician of bia ago. What Cbiistiane it would make of us! What he 'roes of faith, wbat ages in holy wisdom, should we become, just by acting opt that maxim, “Go on, sir, go on I” Underground Stream in Ohio.— It is not generally known that there exists, about a mile wost of Fremont, a remarkable underground stream, with a swift current, and no outlet above the service of the ground this side of Lake Erie. It was discover ed several years ago by a man who was returning from a day’s chopping in tbe woods. In walking over a slightly sunken place, ho noticed a hollow sound, and turning struck the ground with his axe. Tbe axe broke through and disappeared [and never has been heard .from since. Fuither investigations showed a roek about six feet above the surface, with a crevice afoot or more wide, in which water could be seen for several feet below. By tracing its course further down, and breaking through the crust, the same phenomenon appear ed again and by dropping a pioce of wood or otber floating substance in the upper aperture, it was soon seen to pass the lower one, showing a stringourr-nt. Alead’and line let down to tbe depth of seventy feet jMHhUom. The supply-of wa- by drouth the by every pi.’ father. To Clear A House Vermin “Bnleigh,” of Che Boston g . “1 tell you, ladies, a secret that worth your knowing—a new remedy to clean a bouse of roaches aud vermin has been found. So complete is the remedy that men offer to rid premises of all these i peslileutial nuisances by contract. The article Bold under the name of French green and other high sounding names, and at quite a high pries. But the article in plain English'is common green paint in powder Six cents’ worth used about any house will ‘clear the kitchen,’ 4Bd all its Bur roudings. These pests infest many houses in this city, id nauseam , and we believe the ladies will thank us for suggesting so cheap an eradicator.” Dr. John M. Mason, while preaching on the text, “Wbst shall it profit a man,” Ac-, referring to the apologies given by the impenitent for refusing to accept the gift of eternal life, mentioned the oommon plea, “We do not want to profess Chris liani'y, because many dishonour the pro fession ; we do not want to bebypoorites; we are candid men.” “And so,” said the eloquent preaoher, “you are willing to go to hell as gentlemen of candour." It is said that a distinguished lawyer was led by this poiuted rebuke to renounce the hypocrisy of unbelief for sincere faith in the Son of God. • The Palindrome is a line that read* alike backward and forward. Oua of the best is Adam’s first observation to Eve: “Madam, I’m Adam!“ Another is theslofy at St. Helena, being asked by an English man if he could have sacked London, re plied : “Able was l ere I saw Elba.” The latter is the best palindrome, proba bly, in the language.