PAVING TO PREVENT CURCULIO. 



must be cultivated either in hills or drills, 

 to admit the free access of the sun. 



The Boston Pine has succeeded better 

 with me this season than last. It re- 

 quires high cultivation and plenty of room. 

 Though the fruit is large and good, yet I 

 think, as a fructifier, the Large Early 

 Scarlet, as regards a crop of fruit, the more 

 reliable. 



As a market fruit, I consider the Crim- 

 son Cone a valuable kind. It is productive, 



and bears carriage better than most other 

 kinds. It is one of the very best kinds for 

 preserves. If any of our varieties will suc- 

 ceed in the south, this is the most likely to 

 do so ; for it is the most hardy and tough. 

 Last summer was unusually severe on the 

 strawberry plant ; and while other kinds 

 burnt more or less, this continued to grow, 

 and to throw out numerous runners. 



G. W. Huntsman. 



Flu: king, L. I., July 14, 1849. 



PAVING TO PREVENT CURCULIO. 

 BY L. F. ALLEN, BUFFALO, N. Y. 



A. J. Downing — Dear Sir : The depreda- 

 tions of the curculio have almost destroyed 

 our plum crops in western New-York. Un- 

 til four or five years ago, my own trees 

 bore abundantly, of the finest fruit of all 

 the varieties which I cultivate ; but this 

 destructive insect has been so rapidly in- 

 creasing in my grounds, that last year I 

 hardly had, from fifty or sixty thrifty trees, 

 half a bushel of matured fruit of the fine 

 varieties ; and none came to perfection ex- 

 cept the common blue, or Horse plum, 

 which, for a table fruit, is hardly worth 

 cultivation. Even the Green and Yellow 

 Gages, which have usually withstood the 

 depredations of the curculio, yielded to its 

 rapacity, and left me plumless. Since I 

 have been so pestered with these insects, I 

 have tried several remedies which have 

 been published in the different periodicals, 

 and found none efficacious. Salt is of no 

 use. Thumping the tree proves of little 

 avail, besides being a perpetual labor; and 

 picking up curculios, which hop about like 

 fleas, while you are shaking them together 

 on a sheet, seems after all but a puttering 



business ; and as for planting every tree 

 over a dung-heap, that is quite out of the 

 question. Neither does letting the chick- 

 ens or pigs run among them answer the 

 purpose. The curculio thrives in spite of 

 them. 



For some years past, I have heard of the 

 plan of paving under the trees ; and one or 

 two gentlemen of my acquaintance, who 

 tried it in one or two individual cases, be- 

 lieved it to be efficacious. An instance of 

 this kind has recently come to my notice, 

 which seems so conclusive that I think it 

 worthy of notice. Being at Lockport last 

 week, I called to see my old friend, Lyman 

 A. Spalding. Esq., who has a fine fruit or- 

 chard and garden just out of the village. 

 His soil is a sandy loam, slightly mixed 

 with clay — just enough to give it consis- 

 tency — based on a coarse sand, with occa- 

 sional veins of clay subsoil, in a limestone 

 region ; a charming soil for all kinds of 

 fruit, — as those he has in cultivation, seve- 

 ral hundred in number, testify. Mr. Spal- 

 ding is a good pomologist, and pays great 

 attention to his fruits ; and suffering se- 



