FOUR IMPORTANT INSECTICIDES. 133 



needed. The peach becomes rapidly acclimated, e. g., Early Crawford in 

 Mississippi is killed by 0, and here will stand -15°. 



The Hill's Chili is the hardiest variety I know of, and it reproduces itself by 

 seed, giving us two strong points to start with. 



In Russia they experimeuted with plums by growing them on hillsides at an 

 angle of 45° and staking them down in winter. 



I am going to try the possibilities of breeding a hardier variety at the college 

 from pits of the Hill's Chili. 



The worst feature is, not winter cold, but late spring cold. We see trees 

 north of buildings bear, while trees out of the shade are killed, because those 

 north of the building are kept back till the danger from spring frosts is past. 

 So on the lake shore, they have no late spring frosts. 



A. T. Liudemau says he can protect his peach trees at 30 cents apiece. I 

 think there is a future for peach growing in central Michigan, at least on those 

 well drained knolls where the trees will not have wet feet. 



FOUR IMPORTANT mSECTICIDES. 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 

 [Read at the St. Louis and Quincy Institutes.] 



There is no question but that our insect enemies are rapidly increasing in 

 numbers and destructiveness. Many in this audience can well remember when 

 plums were as sure a crop as are pig weeds to-day; when apples were as beauti- 

 ful and fair as the cheeks of the country lass; when corn and wheat leaped 

 forth from the ground w'th no cut-worm to bite asunder, and no Hessian fly to 

 blight. Who of you in the olden time ever saw oats sown by the innumerable 

 locusts, while yet green, as they were all over our State the past summer. Of 

 course we would all like our work done for us, but we would like these grass- 

 hoppers to study up the subject and learn the proper season for sowing before 

 they again scatter our fields with the grain. 



There are two prominent reasons why insects are so increasing in numbers 

 and in their ravages. First, as is true with the cut-worms, the locusts, and the 

 curculio, we are destroying their native food plants, and they are rapidly learn- 

 ing year by year that our cultivated plants are just as wholesome, and even 

 more toothsome, than their old aliment which we have ruthlessly destroyed. 

 Again, we are constantly introducing new insect pests from over the sea, which 

 prove to be more destructive than in their old homes and more than rivals for 

 our native insects with like habits. The codling moth, currant slug, and clover 

 root borer are apt illustrations of these unwelcome foreigners. Whatever we 

 may think about the Chinee, I am sure no one would chide a word, should 

 Congress lay a permanent embargo on the further immigration to our shores of 

 these pernicious insects. 



Yet this picture has its lights as well as its shades. While new and most 

 formidable insects are pouring in upon us, we are constantly learning of new 

 ways and methods to head them off. We often read in our agricultural papers 

 that the fence question is one of the most important ones that now concerns 



