Some very intelligent people write what to do with the larvae of the seventeen-year locust, which the entomologists tell them " must do " immense injury by feeding on the roots of fruit trees for seventeen long years. We have no evidence that they really do any injury by feeding on the roots, though theoretically, as the entomologist argues, they ought to do. A quarter of a century ago, Miss Margaretta Morris, distinguished for her knowledge of insect life, published a paper that attracted considerable attention at the time, contending that the well-known disease in the Butter Pear, was caused by the larvae of the Cicada preying on the roots. She hired a man to dig round a large tree of this variety, and collect and count the enormous number picked out from the earth around. There were other varieties of Pear on her ground as healthy as Pear trees could be, bearing perfect fruit after their kind, which she did not dig around and examine, but which the event showed had as many larvae preying on their roots as on the Butter, and one can scarcely believe they would produce disease on the one and not on the other. This thought was suggested to her, but she would insist that that only showed that some varieties had the power of resisting Cicadian influences more than others.

To her death she fully believed she had discovered the cause of the cracking of the Butter Pear.

The fact is, that there are hundreds of old Pear trees in this vicinity, which during the century or more of their existence must have sustained many generations of Cicada larvae, that are just as healthy as pear trees can be.

We might answer the question, How is it possible that a tree can have thousands of insects preying on its roots without injury ? by the childish reply, "Because it is." We know there is no injury, and the fact ought to be enough. Possibly the explanation may be found in the fact that all trees have thousands of roots for which they have but a temporary use. Thousands of roots die annually under every large tree. It may be that it is no disadvantage to a tree to lose by these insects what they lose anyway; but whether this or any other explanation be the true one or not, the fact remains that no fruit or tree grower has ever had any actual evidence that the larvae of the seventeen-year locust ever did a tree injury.