Annual Meeting at St. Josejyh. 211 



trees^ we have a sovereign remedy in London Purple, one and one- 

 fourtli pounds to a barrel of water, mixed thoroughly, and the trees 

 showered with a syringe will effectually destroy all canker worms. 

 Henry Slieply, of Nevada, Vernon county. Mo., read a paper at 

 our last meeting, giving his treatment with London Purple of his 

 orchard for canker worm, and he writes me that he has not seen 

 one on his orchard this year. He further says, we were compara- 

 tively exempt from the codling moth this year, owing to the early 

 warm weather and then the cold weather, rains and snow which 

 followed. He calls the attention of the members of this society to 

 an unknown insect to him — which has stung many of his apples. 

 In July I noticed two trees of Pippins, the apples were spotted, 

 some had only one spot, others had eighteen to twenty. On looking 

 closely I found they had been stung by some insect ; when first 

 noticed, the specks were not larger than a pin head, but in a few 

 days they would spread to be as large as a dime, when generally the 

 apple would drop. On cutting the spots out I found them to be 

 about half an inch deep, darkened and spongy, looking like a bruise 

 hardly ever reaching the core. 



The two trees had on about twenty buslielsof apples, of which 

 I send you about a bushel. It seems to spread in a circle from 

 those trees, over about two acres. I lost about one hundred bushels 

 of apples from this cause, mostly Ben Davis. I watched closely, 

 but was not able to discover the insect. I examined the apples 

 under a good glass, but beyond the skin being punctured, I found 

 nothing. 1 find a good many fruit men here are troubled with the 

 same thing, but none have suffered to the extent tiiat I have. 

 This is something new to me, perhaps others have had some exper- 

 ience with the same pest, il^so I would be glad to hear from them. 



How shall we save our cabbage? Mrs. F, of our village ac 

 cidentally made the discovery that a solution of alum would kill the 

 worm — a pound to three gallons of water, sprinkled over the cab- 

 bage with a common watering pot, will kill all the young larvas, 

 and many of the white butterfly were found dead — a few appli- 

 cations at intervals of a week or more will enable you to make a 

 good crop with but little cost, as the alum is cheap and non-poison- 

 ous to the human family, and is much more eft'ectual than the 

 much lauded Pyrethum. 



