secketary's budget. 385 



this is not true with the labor of the farm and garden. It is impossi- 

 ble for us to be with all our men, or to use them altogether in a gang, 

 and it is a positive necessity that the help should not only have a 

 mind to work, but put mind in their work. 



BUHACH. 



This is the powder made in California from the flower petals of the 

 Fyrethrum cinerarcBfolium. When first offered for sale, the manufac- 

 turers sent a box of it for trial to the Rural Grounds. It was claimed 

 that it would kill every form of insect life — a claim which we found 

 to be but partly true. Nevertheless, in many cases it seems to us the 

 most desirable insecticide at present known. We tried it upon flies, 

 mosquitos, plant lice, caterpillars of various kinds, beetles, cabbage 

 worms, squash bugs, potato beetles and their larvct;, tomato worms, 

 currant worms, and finally upon the rose bug. Our reports have ap- 

 peared belore Rural readers from year to year, showing that, with the 

 single exception of the potato beetle, it has proven more or less eflect- 

 ual with all. 



If used dry, it may be mixed with several times its bulk of flour. 

 But we prefer to mix it with water in this way: Take, for instance, 

 an ounce ot Buhach, wet this with alcohol and stirring it until it be- 

 comes muddy, add two quarts of water. This may then be poured into 

 the reservoir of the bellows as needed and thus sprayed upon the in- 

 fested plants, or if poured into a pail, any of the several kinds of force- 

 spraying pumps may be used. The bellows, however, will be found 

 much handier where but small quantities are required. It is said that 

 a pound of Buhach (preferably first wet with alcohol) will bear the 

 addition ot fifty gallons of water, and still kill the insects which re- 

 ceive the spray ; but we doubt it. It may be that the imported Pyre- 

 thrum powder is just as economical an insecticide as the California 

 Buhach. Never having tried it, we speak only of that which we have 

 tried, and that, too, with much satisfaction. Last year, for the first 

 time, the Buhach was sprayed upon the spirseas growing here, which 

 of all plants the rose bug attacks first. Though the bushes were alive 

 with these bugs, in ten minutes after the spraying not one was to be 

 found, some having flown ofl", the others dropped to the ground where 

 they seemed to wriggle either in agony, a sort of half paralysis or 

 drunkenness — it was hard to say which. Dwarf apple trees, grape- 

 vines and other plants were subsequently'^ sprayed with the same effect. 



As is well known, this Pyrethrum powder is utterly harmless ex- 

 cept to insect life. — Rural New Yorker. 

 H R— 25 



