30 



PAVING TO PREVENT THE CURCULIO. 



you to thiiiklng why your vines " turn out so 

 poorly." If you find that your soil is poor, and 

 if the crop does not set and swell-off proper- 

 ly, give .them a good dose of soap-suds or li- 

 quid manure at the roots once a week. Grape 

 vines are cormorants, and if you want large 

 and fine fruit, you must give them no homoe- 

 opathic doses of manure. 



If I had " a call " to preach a sermon on 

 gardening, I should take this for my text : Stir 

 the soil. It's not an uncommon thing for 

 people to admit the fact that nothing was 

 made in vain ; but nevertheless they will put 

 in for an exception or two. "I should like to 

 know what weeds were made for !" What for? 

 Why, to force you to keep hoeing and digging 

 in order to stir the soil and make it light and 

 mellow. " But why ?" Because the roots 

 of plants must have air, and if the surface of 

 the ground were never stirred — as for the 

 most part it never would by lazy people, but 

 for the weeds that must be cut up — it would 

 become so hard and close, in many cases, that 

 fresh supplies of air would never get to the 

 roots. " But," the grumbler will say, " how 

 do you get along with the fact that plants in 

 a wild state, grow and flourish, though the soil 

 is not stirred?" But the cases are, by no 



means, the same. Wild plants grow from year 

 to year in the same spot, and there is a yearly 

 deposit of leaves, stalks, and vegetable matter 

 upon the surface of the ground, which keeps it 

 light and open, so that the air can easily get to 

 the roots. This is not at all the case in common 

 soil, where the plants are scattered and the 

 surface is bare, so that it " bakes and becomes 

 hard " with the rain. On this account, the 

 good gardener is always up and stirring his 

 soil, and on this account all the little imple- 

 ments — ploughs, hoes, cultivators, and hand 

 ploughs, are things not to be done without by 

 the raiser of good crops. If you have any 

 doubts remaining, try the experiment for your- 

 self, the first spell of hot, dry weather. Take 

 50 hills of corn or a couple of beds of vege- 

 tables, and loosen up the soil about the roots 

 very often — as often as it becomes a little 

 hard. Directly along side, for the sake of 

 fair play, leave as many hills or beds of the 

 same crop, with little or no stirring. I won't 

 waste room in saying what the result will be, 

 but if it don't open your e3'es to the import- 

 ance of not putting your roots on a short al- 

 lowance of air, then set me down for an un- 

 profitable 



Old Digger. 



1^ 



PAVING TO PREVENT THE CURCULIO. 



BY L. A. SPALDING, LOCKPORT, N. Y. 



A. J. Downing, Esq. — Dear Sir : In page 

 62 of 4th vol. Horticulturist, is a communica- 

 tion made by me on the subject of paving as 

 a prevention to the curculio, in which I allud- 

 ed to the experience of Lyman A. Spauld- 

 ING, Etiq., of Lockport. That communica- 

 tion called out considerable discussion, pro 

 and con, but the question appears as far from 

 settlement as ever. In the last January num- 



ber, page 315, your correspondent Jeffreys 

 wished me to obtain further information from 

 Mr. Spalding on the subject ; and as I met 

 him a few days since, he obligingly promised to 

 write his whole practice, with the results touch- 

 ing this curculio question, which he has kindly 

 done. I forward it to you for publication. I 

 will further add, that Mr. Spalding is an 

 eminently practical man, and little given to 



