MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 339 



Cure for Root Aphis. 



Editor Republican : 



Sir — I herewith hand you an account of some experiments with bi- 

 sulphide of carbon, as an insecticide, more especially for the destruc- 

 tion of that class of vermin that work under or burrow in the ground. 



My first trial of it was in May. I had a cold frame that became 

 infested with the flea beetle, ants, and a mouse or mice. Cabbage, 

 tomato and pepper plants were being destroyed rapidly. I made six 

 holes in the loose soil a finger deep, dropped a few drops of the bi-sul- 

 phide on a lock of cotton the size of a ladies' thimble, and put one down 

 in each hole (not forgetting the moune), covered the hole over with a 

 chip and soil on top of that. Result — no more insects or depredations 

 thereafter. 



I have four apple-trees that are being killed by the mis-called root 

 borer. They are not a borer, for they gouge a channel around and 

 under the crown of the roots, and are usually three years in getting in 

 their work. 



The second year of their work, if it is an "apple year," every blos- 

 som sets an apple which attains about one-fourth size, and nearly every 

 one is carried until autumn, for 'tis rare that the codling moth will 

 trouble a fruit-tree that the gouge-worm (?) has preempted, and hung 

 out his unfailing sign of foliage dwarfed in size, and the new shoots 

 struggling for life. 



The third year the tree starts out in the spring, sluggishly. As the 

 season advances it appears to want water. Here and there a yellow 

 leaf appears, until about the middle of July (usually), the worm finishes 

 its orbit around the roots, and the tree is dead — dead from all foliage, 

 of bright yellow. 



I have heard people speak of the "fire-fang" killing their trees. 

 There is no "fire-fang" west of the Mississippi. 



But it is this slow- working gouge- worm that I want to carbonize. 

 In September I took an old bolt about two feet in length, seven-eighths 

 inches in diameter, sharpened the point and bent it in a curve a little 

 sharper than the fore wheel of a wagon. Starting about one foot from 

 the tree, I drove the bolt until I was satisfied I had hit the heart of 

 the roots. Withdrawing the rod, I took a water sprout, split the 

 small end, inserted a wad of cotton lightly saturated with bi-sulphide, 

 pushed the switch to the end of the hole made by the rod, and a slight 

 twist detached the cotton. 1 then stopped up the mouth of the hole 



