30 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Of course every year we find something new. This year it comes to us in the 

 form of an iron-clad tree-wash, guaranteed to destroy all scale insects, bark louse, 

 etc., and will give the trees a bright, clean, healthy appearance, and will drive out 

 all borers that may be in the trees, and the moth will not deposit eggs on or about 

 the trees during the season the wash is used. All who grow apple, peach, dwarf 

 pears, quince, ash and other trees should not fail to use it, as it is not patented and 

 sold at a high price. Surely this is a bonanza. 



This is the receipt : Take lime, slake and prepare as for ordinary whitewash 

 in a barrel or box. Take enough at a time to make a bucket two-thirds full— pro- 

 per consistency for ordinary whitewashing. Now add one pint of gas tar, one 

 pound of whale-oil soap ; dissolve one pound potash, or one pint of strong lye 

 from wood ashes, or box of concentrated lye. Then add clay or loam enough to 

 make the bucket full of wash of proper thickness, to be applied with a whitewash 

 brush. If the trees hive had the earth ridged up around them, take the earth 

 away from around the collar and apply to the body of the trees from the limbs 

 <lovvn to the ground, or down to the roots. 



Now, 1 did not want to go into this blindfolded or make any more experiments 

 on my peach-trees, as the spraying last season was about all they could stand, and 

 for this reason I sent the receipt to our Secretary and asked him what he thought 

 of it. In reply he said he thought the wash a good one, but would suggest the 

 use of carbolic acid in place of the gas tar, and use a handful of sulphur to each 

 pail of wash. Of course I put a man at work with a new, all-bristle whitewash 

 brush. In less than two hours he came in and wanted a new brush, the wash hav- 

 ing eaten the new brush up. I told him we better wait until 1 returned from this 

 meeting, and now I beg of you to give me something that is a dead shot on the 

 borers that won't kill the trees or eat up our brushes in less than three or four 

 hours, at any rate. 



Since writing the above I have a letter from my foreman that says our trees 

 are safe, but he thinks it gave the borers fits. 



S. W. Gilbert, Thayer, Mo. 



Secretary Goodman says that he had enough concentrated lye and 

 enough carbolic acid to make a half barrel of the wash instead of a 

 bucketful; otherwise it will do harm to the trees; but you may be sure 

 that all eggs or insects have gone to the happy land if the wash touched 

 them. He had used the strongest of lye directly on the trees and 

 found no evil effects, but it is a waste of material as well as brushes 

 to use it so strong. 



Mr. Hartzell says that hot lye will cure the yellows. Gave an 

 instance of a woman who tried to kill a peach tree with boiling lye 

 because it was affected with the yellows and she could not get it cut 

 down! After putting all the boiling hot lye she could get for a week 

 from her ashes, she gave it up and supposed she had succeeded. Be- 

 hold, she found that the tree put on young growth and entirely recov- 

 ered. 



