60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a few inches above the surface, and find sonic holes there. That 

 is the first warning noticed, and they make an examination ; they 

 find nothing but a hole. It is where the borer came out. The 

 borer is an insect that attacks the tree just at the surface of the 

 ground. Two crops of eggs are Laid, and they batch at different 

 seasons — a small white worm proceeds to bore his way into and 

 beneath the bark, and into the wood, working onward and up- 

 ward, and in the course of a year or two, makes its exit some 

 inches from the surface of the ground ; and when you see that 

 little round hole, about the size of a goose-quill, you may know 

 that he has gone. The only remedy, after he has once entered 

 the tree, is to punch him out with a wire or cut him out with a 

 knife or gouge, and it is not so damaging to the tree as you might 

 expect The wound heals up readily. While the borer is at work, 

 it is a growing sore, continually sapping the vitality of the tree; 

 cut it out and it becomes a healthy wound, which will heal over 

 and the tree will recover. But " an ounce of prevention is worth 

 a pound of cure " here. Various applications are made to the tree 

 to render it distasteful to the borer, and prevent the female from 

 laying her eggs. Almost anything that will not injure the tree 

 and that is noxious to insect tastes, will accomplish this. Wash- 

 ing with any one of the various offensive and tenacious liquids, 

 which will hold on during the mouth of June, is very sure to 

 accomplish it. Whale oil soap, and carbolic acid soap, have been 

 recommended and used with success. The application of gas-tar 

 in autumn has been recommended, and is claimed to be safe. 

 I never have tried it. Whale oil soap, or anything of that sort, 

 is very distasteful to insects, and the action of the mild alkali up- 

 on the bark is favorable to the growth of the tree. Nothing safer 

 can be recommended than a wash of that kind. 



Notwithstanding all these insects that are ready to attack our 

 trees, we have no reason to be discouraged. I think the success 

 of fruit culture has been quite as good as we ought to expect, 

 considering how much this department has been neglected. If 

 we raise a crop of corn, we expect to manure it ; if we raise 

 a crop of apples, ought we not to provide food for the tree? 

 Whether this is to be done by mulching the surface, so as to favor 

 the decay of vegetable matter already in the soil, or by the direct 

 application of manures to the tree, every one must decide for him- 

 self, as his own locality and circumstances may seem to demand ; 

 but it is evident to every one, that we ought not to expect to get 



