■WHITEWASHING— THE NEW REMEDY FOR THE CURCULIO. 



BY L. YOUNG OF KY., AND M. II. SIMPSON OF BTA^S. 



We hasten to lay the following correspon- 

 dence before o:ir readers, trusting that it 

 may be in time, in many parts of the coun- 

 try, to save the smooth-skinned fruits. 



It will be seen that two cultivators, in 

 different parts of the country, vouch for the 

 efficacy of lime in preventing the puncture 

 of the insect which so largely destroys the 

 plum, in many parts of the Union. These 

 communications have been made public by 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in 

 the Boston Transcript, and we desire to 

 give them a larger circulation in our col- 

 umns. 



The plan strikes us favorably — especial- 

 ly syringing or showering the young fruit 

 with whitewash. But we suggest that the 

 whitewash should be rather thin, and a day 

 old, or we fear it might prove more disas- 

 trous to the crop than the " little Turk " 

 himself. 



We suppose Mr. Young, of Louisville, 

 K)'., one of the most zealous of western 

 horticulturists, to be the originator of this 

 use of lime. Ed. 



Springdale, near Louisville, Ky. July, 1849. 

 Samuel Walker, Pres. Mass. Hort. So- 

 ciety — Dear Sir : In the course of a conver- 

 sation held with you in Boston, during the 

 autumn of last year, I learned that the cur- 

 culio was exceedingly troublesome to the 

 growers of the smooth-skinned fruits in your 

 vicinage, and that the Massachusetts Hor- 

 ticultural Society was anxious to elicit any 

 information tending to inspire a hope that 

 it is in the power of art or science to apply 

 a remedy capable of averting so great a 

 public calamity as that which a fruit-relish- 

 ing community sustains by the repeated 

 yearly losses of its apricots, plums and other 

 smooth-skinned fruits. On that occasion, I 

 hinted to you the result of an experiment 



with lime, tried upon the plum crop of 

 1843, and signified a determination at the 

 same time to repeat the experiment before 

 expressing an opinion as to the efficacy of 

 lime, used as a protection to glabrous fruits, 

 which are usually preyed upon by the cur- 

 culio. Having then promised to communi- 

 cate the result, I now proceed to redeem 

 my pledge. 



The severe frost of the 16th of April last 

 destroyed almost entirely the fruit crop of 

 the West, in all locations where the fruit 

 trees had bloomed as early as the first of 

 April or sooner. This occurrence narrowed 

 the limits of the field of experiment for the 

 current year, until its whole area is of very 

 inconsiderable extent — a few individual 

 fruits, only, outliving the storm of the 15th 

 and 16th of April. 



I have thought, however, on the other 

 hand, that a shield capable of protecting 

 and saving harmless throughout the whole 

 season of danger, a few individual fruits, 

 enfeebled by the severity of the April 

 freeze, and surrounded by a whole host of 

 enemies, more than equal to the destruction 

 of the whole crop, had it survived the April 

 disaster, could scarcely have won for itself 

 higher claims to our confidence, by protect- 

 ing a full crop under ordinary circumstan- 

 ces. The experiment of the current year, 

 therefore, has tended to confirm my belief 

 in the proposition that common carbonate 

 of lime, (which is a very cheap and acces- 

 sible article, of easy application, ) applied 

 before smooth-skinned or short-napped fruits 

 have received the sting of the curculio, and 

 continued until the tender stages of their 

 growth have passed away — say four weeks 

 — is a more efficacious remedy against the 

 attack of the curculio than any nostrum 

 now in general use, and considering its 

 cheapness and applicability, is deserving of 

 further trial. 



That others might be enabled to judge 

 of the soundness of those conclusions at 

 which I have arrived in this communica- 

 tion, a detail of my experiments is ap- 



