Modern Improvements in Horticullute. 301 



the time of the opening of the buds, and with perfect safety to 

 the plants. Such a discovery would be most valuable, and if 

 extended to espalier and standard trees of all kinds, as well as 

 houses and walls, many valuable crops of fruit might be secured 

 find many a sickly tree (the first to suffer from insects) be 

 preserved. In our search for ingredients* to compose such a 

 protection for our plants as would either offend or destroy the 

 spoilers, we are often led astray by supposing that such qua- 

 lities as are disagreeable to our own palates, must also be so to 

 the insects ; but this may be quite the reverse, as many of our 

 most gratifying condiments may to them be both offensive and 

 fatal. We have, therefore, a vast store of qualities, from which 

 we may obtain some one, or a combination, that would answer 

 our purpose. 



The crops of the kitchen garden, particularly the cabbage 

 tribe, are preyed on by caterpillars of many kinds ; those of 

 four or five sorts of moths and three or four different butterflies. 

 The turnip-fly, a species of beetle, (crysomela nemorum vel 

 oleracea,) is destructive to many young seedling plants, as well 

 as annual flowers ; and as many of them are attracted to the 

 plants which their larvae devour, chiefly by the odour, a wash 

 may be employed for the preservation of particular crops, 

 which may drive the insects from their prey. 



Of the Diseases of Plants, — Some of these are radical, and 

 are owing to the unfavourable constitution or deleterious qua- 

 lities of the soil ; in which case a change of it for that which is 

 better, is the only remedy ; — sometimes from accidents which 

 cause early decay; — in some cases from the non-assimilation 

 of the stock of a fruit-tree with its bud or graft ; — sometimes 

 from natural decay, from attacks of insects, and from parasite 

 plants, as mildew. The last is a fungus or agaric, which in- 

 fests the straw of cereal plants, (but on them is not white, but 

 black or brown, hence its other name, rubigo or rust,) the 

 leaves of the berberry and some others : but the most de- 

 structive fungus is that which is called mildew, from its milky 

 or meal-like appearance. Fruit-trees, especially peach and 



* There are some plants which are rarely preyed on by insects, such as the to- 

 matds, artichoke, &c.: the repulsive qualities of such plants should be ascertained, 

 and perliaps decoctions or other extracts from such migbtact as repellents. 



APRIL— JULY, 1828. X 



