neration that go from the old homestead.

Occasionally the tree, or a number of them, sicken and die, or linger
out a miserable existence, and we naturally after failing to ascribe the
cause to bad soil, want of moisture or adverse atmospheric agencies,
conclude that the tree is infested with insects, especially if the bark
in certain places seems diseased. Often the disease is in streets
lighted by gas, attributed to the leakage of the gas. Such a case has
come up recently at Morristown, New Jersey. An elm was killed by the Elm
borer (Compsidea tridentata), and the owner was on the point of suing
the Gas Company for the loss of the tree from the supposed leakage of a
gas pipe. While the matter was in dispute, a gentleman of that city took
the pains to peel off a piece of the bark and found, as he wrote me,
"great numbers of the larvae of this beetle in the bark and between the
bark and the wood, while the latter is 'tattooed' with sinuous grooves
in every direction and the tree is completely girdled by them in some
places. There are three different sizes of the larvae, evidently one, two
and three years old, or more properly six, eighteen and thirty months
old." The tree had to be cut down.

Dr. Harris, in his "Treatise on Injurious Insects," gives an account of
the ravages of this insect, which we quote: "On the 19th of June, 1846,
Theophilus Parsons, Esq., sent me some fragments of bark and insects
which were taken by Mr. J. Richardson from the decaying elms on Boston
Common, and among the insects I recognized a pair of these beetles in a
living state. The trees were found to have suffered terribly from the
ravages of these insects. Several of them had already been cut down, as
past recovery; others were in a dying state, and nearly all of them were
more or less affected with disease or premature decay. Their bark was
perforated, to the height of thirty feet from the ground, with numerous
holes, through which insects had escaped; and large pieces had become so
loose, by the undermining of the grubs, as to yield to slight efforts,
and come off in flakes. The inner bark was filled with burrows of the
grubs, great numbers of which, in various stages of growth, together
with some in the pupa state, were found therein; and even the surface of
the wood, in many cases, was furrowed with their irregular tracks. Very
rarely did they seem to have penetrated far into the wood itself; but
their operations were mostly confined to