288 TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANKAKEE 



injurious. While our apple crop is becoming less each year, one of 

 the easiest kinds to grow are wormy ones; unfortunately there is no 

 demand for this kind of apples and, as they are scarcely fit for hog 

 feed, they are only a trouble and expense to us, without a single 

 redeeming quality in their favor. 



While our system of growing apples is a poor one for the apples, 

 it is good, in fact the very best, for the codling moth, which pro- 

 duces the worm in the apple. The grass and weeds in our orchards 

 afford an excellent shelter for the larvae of the moth during the 

 Avinter, and in summer we have them in countless numbers to damage 

 our fruit. 



The late Mr. Dixon, of Iowa, a very extensive orchardist, was, 

 I believe, among the first to use an arsenical preparation for the 

 destruction of this insect. Since that time Prof. Budd and other 

 noted horticulturists have advocated such measures. Prof. Forbes, 

 by careful experiments, has proved that a large per cent, of our fruit 

 can be saved by this remedy. Mr. A. C. Hammond states that last 

 year he grew perfect apples on sprayed trees, while on trees not so 

 treated nearly all the fruit was wormy. 



On account of the great danger by accident from the careless 

 use of pure arsenic, Professor Beale recommends London purple; 

 most orchardists use arsenic, however, as it does not clog the nozzle 

 of the force pump in spraying. It has been found by experiment 

 that a very small quantity of arsenic is sufficient for the purpose. 

 Two and one-half ounces, first dissolved by boiling in from one to 

 two gallons of water, in which was dissolved one-half box of potash 

 or concentrated lye, will suffice when mixed with one hundred gal- 

 lons of water. This should be sprayed over the trees with a force 

 pump, when the blossoms are about half off, and again a few days 

 later, just before the young apples turn downward. 



Our cherry crop appears to be more uncertain even than the 

 apple. Of late years, when they escape winter killing and injury by 

 late spring frosts, we find most of them wormy, which proves that 

 the curculio is here and intends to stay, and where there are no 

 plums, the cherry is accepted instead. Even when we escape the 

 curculio, another destroying agent is ever at hand to deprive us of 

 fruit. I allude to the birds; of late years the birds have either 

 become greater fruit eaters or more numerous. They take the cher- 

 ries off a tree with surprising quickness, not waiting for them to 

 get fully ripe. The raspberry and blackberry receive their attention 

 in their respective seasons, and they do not ask for toll for having 

 destroyed a few insects, but during the past season they seem to be 

 satisfied with nothing less than the entire crop. In some places the 

 birds must be got rid of or small fruit growing abandoned. 



Speaking of raspberries, I know some instances where plants of 

 such good varieties as the Tyler, Souhegan and Gregg, of the black- 



