A treatise on insects injurious to gardeners, foresters, and farmers / by Vincent Köllar ... ; Translated from the German, and illustrated by engravings by J. and M. Loudon. With notes by J. O. Westwood.

  • Kollar, Vincenz, 1797-1860.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on insects injurious to gardeners, foresters, and farmers / by Vincent Köllar ... ; Translated from the German, and illustrated by engravings by J. and M. Loudon. With notes by J. O. Westwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Creator, and as she indeed every moment issues afresh from the hand of the Almighty Being. In His hand the youth of nature is continually renewed ; and under His all-ruling providence, all the millions of apparently destructive beings only labour in preserving her existence and embellishment. ‘Let us here contemplate the whole economy of nature at a general glance, in respect to forests only ; and let us view her as she is, without the aid of man, who often dis- turbs her general arrangement. * Insects that feed on wood are not injurious to ligneous plants, except from their disproportionate numbers; and these numbers, when left to bountiful nature herself, are never disproportionate: two assertions which, however paradoxical they may seem at first sight, are yet admitted by the naturalist, who has proofs of them daily before his eyes, as principles, but which I must here demonstrate, because many persons who are engaged in studying the works of nature, either as professional men, or as amateurs, are not naturalists. . “Tn a work on the Fruitfulness of Plants [also written by Schrank ] it is stated that an elm twelve years old in one single year produces 164,500 seeds ; which in the course of another twelve years, (if no accident happened) would be- come as large trees as their parent: and from this calcula- tion it appears that a succession of much more than 26,960 millions of trees might be obtained from one. “* This calculation is made from the fruit only, and not ' from the blossoms of any tree, and is, therefore, applicable to all other trees. A single species of tree, such as we have them in one of our provinces the most scantily clothed with trees, would during the life of man cover a large ex- B2