Secretary's Budget. 359 



that time found the disease prevalent among the caterpilhirs in tlie 

 gardens of the Micliigan Agricultural College, and during a late 

 trip there, saw that it was again preyalent. Let us hear from any 

 Prairie Farmer readers who have noticed these worms dying in 

 their localities, in order that an idea my.be gamed as to what extent 

 this beneficent destroyer may be relied upon to save the cabbages. 



PEVENTIISTG INSECT DEPREDATIONS. 



In the same report the following preventive measures are 

 recommended: 1. High culture, to impart strength to resist 

 insect attacks. 2. Rotation of crops, and their removal as far 

 distant as possible from the soil which has become infested with 

 them. 3. Selection of such seed as is least liable to attack, as for 

 instance the Lancaster or Fultz wheat, against the Hessian fly. 4. 

 Late sowing ; as for the Hessian fly, after frosts occurring late in 

 September, in New- York. 5. Refraining for a year or two in an 

 infested locality from the cultivation of crops formidably attacked. 

 6. Surrounding fields with a border, or rows, of more attractive 

 food, to concentrate the attack. The following modes for exclud- 

 ing insects are also mentioned, which may be useful to a greater or 

 less extent, although killing the depredators, instead of repelling, 

 is always to be preferred : Tarred paper bands to exclude canker 

 worms ; washing trunks to prevent egg-deposits ; mounding earth 

 or ashes to exclude peach grub ; showering plum trees with putrid 

 whale oil after every rain to repel curculios, &c. 



SALT FOR INSECTS. 



If you wnll examine the wilting Hubbard squash vines. Just 

 under the ground, yon will doubtless find two or more borers eating 

 their lives out, and I would suggest your trying salt on them, 

 which has saved mine this summer. Whenever I found a vine 

 wilting, I put about a teaspoonful around it at the surface of the 

 ground, and then hilled them up to the first leaf stalks, and in a 

 few days new leaves made their appearance, and they are now doing- 

 well, and not one that I did treat so died. My theory is that salt 

 will poison tlie borers, and the hilling will bring out new roots, 

 and so it acts. I have been experimenting this summer with salt 

 on all the vegetables, to find out how much each sort would stand 

 before injury, and, to my surprise, I find onions will grow under 

 an application at the rate of 150 bushels to the acre before turning 

 yellow ; carrets, parsnips and beets, 100 bushels ; cabbages more 

 than a gill to each plant ; but cucumbers, strawberries and turnips 



