The vine has not sprouted yet, (June 3d,) though other vines, not troubled by the beetle, have grown three inches. I never saw the insect before. Can you give its name and habits 1 Labrusca.

New Bedford, June 3, 1861.

P. S., June 7th. The Concord is now thrusting out secondary buds - little watery things, intended for 1862; but it is of course three or four weeks behind time. I suppose the wood of this year will not ripen well, so next year the whole vine will be backward, and perhaps not ripen at crop. May not this explain what old gardeners say is a fact, that the Isabella grape ripens later than formerly?

[The insect referred to is the chalybia, and is a great pest. In some localities about here, where it did a good deal of mischief some six years ago, it is now quite unknown. It seems to be of a migratory habit. As many as possible should be killed with the thumb and finger, Their depredations may be prevented to some extent by syringing with a decoction of whale oil soap and lime, which must be several times repeated. The Gishurst Compound we should think would also be good. You may have some trouble in ripening the shoots from your secondary buds. Assist them as much as possible by pinching in the laterals to a single leaf, and in September pinch out the ends of all the shoots. You may in this way ripen your wood, but it will not be as strong as the wood from primary buds, and will not next year produce as much or as large fruit. - Ed].

Mr. Mead, Dear Sir, - Please tell us in your next number the very best way to cover Strawberry beds in winter. Leaves blow off with me, and tan bark, while it is a good winter covering, keeps the plants back late in the spring, and brings in grubs in summer. Respectfully yours, A. D. G.

[It is a pity the leaves blow off, for they are a most excellent covering. A little light brush, or a few corn stalks, would prevent this. Long straw or salt hay makes a very good covering, not much liable to be blown off by the wind. Soat-ter it all over the plants, but not thick. - Ed].

Piter B. Mead, Esq.: I wish to give a few thoughts about the curculio. They may be very erroneous, and show that I am not an " insect man;" nevertheless, take them for what they are worth, and let them pass.

1. The curculio worm winters in the tree.

2. There are two generations of them during one season.

3. showed me last January, while we were looking over the fruit buds on the pear trees, close down to the base of the bud, looking very sharp, a little web, the same color as the wood. On opening this web the regular curculio worm was found, in dozens of instances, only about half the size we find him in the spring. We will start with him here at the base of the fruit and leaf buds, and as spring opens and the leaf commences to grow, the worm comes out and begins to feed. It feeds on the leaf a few weeks, then wraps itself in a leaf it has destroyed, (of which you will notice a plenty on the tree at this time,) and drops to the ground, into which it works its way, and comes out the perfect curculio, in season to sting the young fruit and deposit its egg. Then, in turn, this fruit drops to the ground with the live worm that came from the egg in the fruit; the worm enters the ground, and in a week or two comes forth the curculio again, which deposits its eggs this time at the base of the next year's buds, which hatch before the cold weather sets in, and it builds for itself a web impervious to water, and a sure protection through the winter season, unless the point of the penknife brings him out.

Thus you see he is all ready, if not molested, to commence work in the spring; and through changing and perpetuating makes his yearly rounds.

Mr. Mead, if it is not the curculio worm that we find in winter on the tree, can you tell us what it is ?

P. S. Did that grub I sent you last week get there alive? They have made bad work with my vines. Shoots four inches long on my Rebecca and Diana vines, they have eaten off with a clean cut. What kind of treatment would you give them? I mean those that I can't get between the thumb and finger of my rubber glove. Do you know any thing of their habits? How do they spend the winter 1

Very truly, Rufus Conant, Jr.

[Your curculio theory is an ingenious one, but our observations, we are sorry to say, compel us to dissent from both your propositions. We have kept the curculio in numbers during the whole year, and have demonstrated, to our own satisfaction at least, that it passes the winter in the perfect or imago state. We have failed to discover more than one generation during the year, though we have watched them with special reference to this very point If you should hatch out the "worms" found on your pear trees, you would find them not to be the curculio. As you seem to feel an interest in such matters, we suggest that you do so.

The grub sent came to hand alive, and is the larva of a moth. It is very destructive, not only to the young shoots, but also to the fruit, eating through the footstalk, so that the whole bunch drops. They spend the winter in the ground.

The thumb and finger of your rubber glove are a sure remedy, but very tedi ous-Air-slaked lime dusted over the vines, whale oil soap, Gishurst compound, etc will help you very materially, but the application must be repeated several times. "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom "from insect enemies. - Ed].

Mr. Peter B. Mead:- I was much pleased with the manner in which some questions of Mr. Geo. H. Goodwin, in your January number, were asked and answered. They were most of them questions that 1 have wanted to ask myself; but I could not help wishing that the first question had been in this form: " Are trees which come from the nursery with a few large, long roots, better than those with a few fibrous roots? " for we must all agree that a tree with many roots is better than one with only a few, let them be of whatever character they may. Mr. L. E. Berckmans has, I believe, expressed the opinion somewhere in the Horticulturist, that fibrous roots to a newly planted tree are of doubtful value. I do not endorse this, but I am fully convinced that the first and most important requisite for a young tree is, that it shall be furnished on all sides with a sufficient number of strong brace-roots to keep it in its place, and protected from being swayed about by winds and storms; after this more fibrous roots the better, provided they are not so numerous as to get matted or entangled together, so as to prevent their being kept in their original position. In that case I should cut them away, unless the circumstances would permit the removal of the earth with the roots.