PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 21 



Prof. Davis: Both of these borers prefer injured or diseased wood, and 

 they will preferably attack a tree that is not thrifty. I will say that it is 

 true, what Mr. Lyon has said, except in a very few instances. 



Mr. Wilton: I have had some experience with these borers and I find 

 the most successful way of treating them is by washing the trees with 

 whale-oil soap. I first put this preparation on to keep the sheep from eat- 

 ing the bark. I found after I commenced washing the trees to keep 

 the sheep from troubling them, I had no more trouble with the borers. 

 The wash is whale-oil soft soap, carbolic acid, and lime, made about the 

 thickness of common cream. You can smell it in the bark the next spring 

 after you put it on, and the carbolic acid and the lime will stay on about 

 a year and a half. Mice or rabbits will not trouble the trees while that is 

 on. Some of my neighbors were troubled with rabbits eating their trees. 

 I told them I thought this wash would help them. They used it and in 

 every instance the rabbits left the trees. 



Question: Don't you go a little light on the carbolic acid? 



I only used a very little. There is not so much danger from use of the 

 crude carbolic acid as the refined. I use that more than the other. In a 

 barrel of that wash I would not use more than a quart of carbolic acid. 



Question: How much soap to the barrel? 



I buy whale oil and make soft soap from it, just as from any other, 

 grease, and use of the lime just enough to make a fair whitewash. The 

 lime is what holds it. It is a very good thing, specially in a wet season, 

 to put in a little tar; it gives it a little greasy coat that will resist the rain. 

 It washes off the whitewash unless there is a little tar. I would not put 

 in over a pint of tar in a half barrel of this. A barrel would cost but 

 little. The whale oil costs about seventy-five cents per gallon. It doesn't 

 cost over fifty cents per gallon, by the barrel, at the outside. 



Prof. Davis: The whale-oil soap that you buy all made, costs about 

 twenty-five cents per pound. 



Mr. Wilton: I have used this several times. I have used sometimes 

 the whale-oil soap already prepared, and it is not nearly so good as that 

 made from the whale oil and made into soft soap. 



Mr. Morrill : Prof. Davis, what is your estimate of that wash? 



Prof. Davis: I think it would be a good thing. I don't know as it 

 would be any better than kerosene emulsion. Have you had any experi- 

 ence with carbolic acid that makes you so careful? 



Mr. Morrill : No, because I have always been very careful, but I had 

 neighbors use potasb, carbolic acid, and soft soap with lime. They read 

 of it in a catalogue of Hale, I think. They wrote to Hale for the formula. 

 They made up their mixture and painted the trees with it, as fine trees as 

 I ever saw, and in twenty days there were no trees. They wrote to 

 Hale and it developed that they had sent to Chicago and got the pure 

 article, good, pure carbolic acid and pure potash, and he laid it to the fact 

 that they got the pure instead of the crude, which he had always used. 

 That is the reason that T throw out a caution for anything like that going 

 on record. 



Prof. Davis : I would sooner trust the carbolic acid than the potash. 

 The potash is very severe. 



Mr. Morrill: I feel that great caution should be exercised in all these 

 things. 



