Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1881 — The Fruit-Grower’s Best Friend. [ARTICLE]

The Fruit-Grower’s Best Friend.

Many of thd leading orchard proprietors in Northern Italy and Southern Germany are cultivators of the common black ant, which insect they hold in high esteem as the fruit-grower’s best friend. They establish ant hills in their orchards, And leave the police service of their fruit trees entirely to the tiny colonists, which pass all their time in climbing up the stems of the fruit trees, cleansing their boughs and leaves of malefactors, mature as well as embryotic, and descending laden with spoils to the ground, where they comfortably consume or store away their booty. They never meddle with sound fruit, but only invade suoh apples, pears, Mid plums as have already been penetrated by the canker, which they remorselessly pursue to its fastnesses within the very heart of the fruit. Nowhere are apple and pear trees so free from blight and destructive insects, as in the immediate neighborhood of a large ant hill, five or six years old. The favorite food of ants would appear to be the larvae and pupae of those creatures which spend the whole of their brief existences in devouring the tender shoots and juvenile leaves of fruit trees. There was a young lady named Fair, Who artistically banged her front hair; Her face ahe would powder To make her look louder, And her skirta—well, she had none to spare.