APPLES AND CANKER-WORMS. 205 



call names, for I don't wish to injure anybody ; but I used that 

 superphosphate, after as careful an examination as I could give 

 it without analysis, side by side with horse-manure, to ascertain 

 the results from so many dollars' worth of this superphosphate 

 and so many dollars' worth of stable manure. It is sold for 

 thirty or thirty-two dollars a ton, and I am free to say that I 

 regard it as very dear manure for any crop. I should only use 

 it when I could not get stable-manure. 



Question. How often do you put on the amount of manure 

 you spoke of — twenty-five cords ? 



Mr. Hyde. Only once. For instance : we prepare our 

 ground in the spring and the manure is applied. Of course the 

 first year the plants cover the ground, and the next year we get 

 a fine crop. When the second crop is off, about the first week 

 in July, we turn them all over and put in another crop. We 

 do not use that land again for strawberries for three or four 

 years, because, with strawberries as with other crops, we must 

 have rotation ; and they do not do as well on the same soil again 

 immediately. 



As to apples, you know how Mr. Clapp of Dorchester has 

 raised them in great abundance in a region perfectly infested 

 with canker-worms. He has raised twelve hundred dollars 

 worth of Gravenstein apples when all around him there was 

 not an apple left. How did he do it? He put around his 

 trees wooden troughs that he had made. He had one set that 

 lasted ten years. They are wooden troughs cut out like a gut- 

 ter, put around the tree and then a little roof pul; over it, the 

 interstices being filled with oyster-shell lime or something of that 

 kind, packed down firmly. Into these troughs he put crude 

 petroleum. That had to be renewed once in a while, and once 

 in a while the canker-worms were so numerous as to bridge it 

 over, and a few might get on to the tree ; but while everybody's 

 trees in Dorchester (now Boston) were so infested by canker- 

 worms that every green leaf was destroyed, his orchard has 

 remained green and flourishing, and he has raised fruit right 

 along. It is true, it is considerable trouble to do this, but it 

 pays abundantly. Another man has preserved his orchard by 

 the use of printer's ink, which is better than tar. His way of 

 doing it is to put a strip of tarred paper around his trees (can- 

 vas would answer a better purpose), and over that spread 



