STATE HORTIOULTUEAL SOCIETY. 109 



quick succession, without apparently diminishing tlieir appetites. From what has 

 been stated of the habits of the lady-bird, it will readily be inferred that to their 

 destruction cliiefly, may be attributed the great increase, the past spring, of the apple 

 tree louse, and that to the little lady-birds, and closely allied insects, in the aid they 

 afford us in the destruction of noxious insects, may justly be attributed much of our 

 success in the cultivation of the apple. Also, it will be seen, that when our cannibal 

 insect friends are greatly diminished or destroyed, then those insects, injui'ious to 

 vegetation, must be kept vvdthin control by artiticial aids. 



REMEDIES DESTRUCTIVE TO APPLE TREE LICE. 



Make a strong decoction of tobacco, by boiling tobacco, or tobacco stems, in water. 

 To four gallons of the tobacco water, add, say one quart of strong soft soap, and with 

 a garden engine apply this mixture to the infested trees. 



Another remedy, equally efficacious, consists in slacking quick lime with boiling hot 

 water, using only so much water as will reduce the hme to powder. Lime so slacked 

 will possess more caustic properties than air slacked. After a shower, or while the 

 ti'ees are wet with dew, throw the powdered lime over them. One application , well 

 applied, esi^ecially if they are wet enough to cause the lime to adhere^ will kill the 

 lice and prevent scab on apples. 



OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE PLUM CURCULIO. 



It is the belief of many persons that curculios hibernate above ground during 

 winter in the beetle form. Among the advocates of this theory are several of our 

 learned Entomologists. On consulting them with reference to my own grounds, which 

 were so cultivated as to afford no hiding place for the hibernation of curculios, they at 

 once pointed to the adjoining forest, which separates my orchard from those of my 

 neighl)ors, as affording them ample shelter in winter. 



This forest ground had not been burned over in the past fifteen years. Much of it 

 had been under fence eleven years, but had not in that time been pastured. Hence 

 the accumulated rubbish was so great as to lend a strong probability to the theory of 

 its being the favorite winter resort of the "Little Tui'k," and from which the 

 orchard was constantly supplied. It was in vain that I endeavored to explain to my 

 friends, learned in the science of bugs, that the annual influx of insects into my 

 grounds from the direction of the forest could come Irom the orchards beyond. To 

 fully test the possibility of their presence in the woods, and encouraged by the hope 

 of destroying our little foe by wholesale, I raked the leaves away from the fences and 

 applied tire to all sides of the forest at the same time. 



Thus, in less than two hours, I probably destroyed a vastly greater number of 

 forest trees than of curculios. This will appear when it is stated that in May last, 

 from the fifth to the twenty-seventh, there was a gradual increase of curculios in my 

 orchard. But from that time until the sixth of June, their decrease was such as to 

 justify the hope that the end of the curculio season was near at hand . With respect 

 to the insects bred in my own grounds, this was probably the case . Two or three 

 days later, however, there occurred a very warm afternoon, with the wind blowing 

 from my orchard directly over the burnt district, and towards the orchards beyond. 

 It will, doubtless, be a matter of surprise to the reader when I state that on the fol- 



