136 STATE H0RT1CULTUEA.L SOCIETY. 



surfaces that there is scarcely room for the insertion of another beak. 

 Spraying at this time avails but little, as the insects are so protected 

 by the distorted leaves that the majority cannot be reached by any 

 fluid, however, forcibly projected. Severe cutting back of the infested 

 branches is the only preventive measure practicable at this season. 

 This should be accompanied by such stimulation of the growth of the 

 tree, by cultivation and the application of potash fertilizers as is 

 possible. The rest may be left to nature, who, now that warm weather 

 has set in, is marshalling her parasitic and cannibalistic hosts against 

 the sap-sucking millions and will soon have them in subjection. 



Neither the vineyard, the small fruits, the vegetable nor the flower 

 garden have this year escaped a disastrous visitation of the same 

 ubiquitous pests. Among the small fruits currants have especially 

 suffered, a large proportion of the leaves showing from the upper side 

 the dropsical puffiness and discoloration that tells of the colonies of vo- 

 racious pale green lice which make their home in the concavities of the 

 under surface. These, as well as the black plant-lice of the grape 

 (Aphis vitis)^Q.2Xi\i^ dislodged — and probably by that means destroyed 

 — by pyrethrum powder, tobacco dust or air-slacked lime, applied with 

 an insect-powder puff or bellows, of which there are numerous patents. 



In the flower garden the most unmanageable species is that which 

 attacks the honey-suckles. Small plants may be cleared by smoking or 

 steaming under some sort of tent-like cover. Tobacco should be used, 

 either the stems or coarse leaves slightly dampened and burned over 

 charcoal, or the fumes from a tea, or the extract of tobacco poured into 

 a vessel of boiling water. Spraying with the two latter preparations 

 of tobacco is measurably effective, except where the insects are too 

 much protected by the density and curling of the foliage. 



In our own garden two large plants were cut to the ground while 

 in full bloom and the tops burned as the easiest way of preventing the 

 spread of the pest. 



Several extracts of tobacco are now in use by florists in prefer- 

 ence to fumigation by burning the stems or leaves. 



A friend of the writer uses an extract called the " rose-leaf brand, 

 which is poured into boiling water in the proporLion of an ounce to a 

 gallon of water, and thus disseminated as steam through the tightly- 

 closed plant-houses, all the employes meanwhile taking good care to 

 keep outside, as the fumes are very poisonous. 



The peculiar and complicated developments of the Aphididae 

 make them at once the most interesting and the most diflScult subjects 

 of a study afforded by the insect world. Their prodigiously rapid 

 multiplication, viviparously, at certain seasons of the year, instead of 



