STATH HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 59 



think the tree will die. I don't believe, with Mr. Wier, that the white 

 wood exudes new bark. I have girdled cottonwood and willows by 

 taking the bark all off when the leaves are ripe in August, and it killed 

 them dead ; not even a sucker ever showed itself. 



Dr. ScHRiKDER. — Are you for or against girdling? 



Mr. Robison. — Both ; but would do as Mr. Spalding says we can, 

 by wiring around the limbs, just to get some large specimens, but believe 

 it best to do it on a small scale. 



Mr. Spalding. — I do not advise stripping — nothing of the kind; 

 neither do 1 advise a radical system of girdling, but to girdle lightly and 

 at the proper time, and no harm can possibly ensue, as in four or five 

 weeks the bark is thoroughly united again. 



Mr. Wier. — Mr. Robison disputes my assertions. I can only say 

 that he don't know what he is talking about. I know, from positive 

 evidence, that the bark is formed by the granulation of sap that exudes 

 from the white wood. I will take an orchard of 500 or 600 trees, four 

 or five years planted, and cut away the bark for five or six inches entirely 

 around the tree and into the wood, and I will agree to pay one dollar for 

 every tree that dies, if any one will give me fifty cents for every one that 

 lives. 



The President. — We must now close the discussion, as there are 

 many valuable pajoers to be read and discussed. 





Mr. Wier wSIFnow read his paper on Entomology. 



REPORT UPON ENTOMOLOGY. 

 Mr. Wier read the following : 



NOXIOUS insects and their enemies. 



This is a subject to which I have paid considerable attention during 

 the past twenty years, and my conclusions are that the insects well known 

 as noxious have but very few enemies, and this appears to be the principal 

 reason that they become so numerous as to become injurious to our crops. 

 And it is to try and correct some erroneous opinions that I write a few 

 lines on this subject. 



In the first place, birds are considered by nearly all the one greatest 

 enemy to noxious insects; that they, by constantly feeding on them, keep 

 them from destroying everything in the shape of vegetable life ; that they 

 are the great conservators of man's crops from destroying worm, bug 

 and beetle. This view has been generally accepted without proper inves- 

 tigation, and is very far from being correct; and this proper, practical 

 investigation will prove. Radical as it may appear, I am inclined to the 

 belief that if all the birds were stricken out of existence to-day, after five 



