BIRDS, INSECTS, &c. 



part from the destruction of the forests, but mainly from the absence of laws against the 

 vagabond race of unfledged sportsmen, who shoot sparrows when they ought to be plant- 

 ing corn — that this inordinate increase of insects is to be attributed." [From the leader 

 in Hort.for July, 1851.] 



Mr. Editor — I select the two passages from our pomological scripture, for the purpose 

 of showing the limited operation of the remedy applauded in the one, and of protesting 

 against the injustice of the conclusions involved in the other. 



It may do very well for the plum cultivator, who has ample room and verge enough, to 

 set apart a portion of his grounds for an extensive pig-sty — who has the means to furnish 

 it with tenants and to support them — whose taste and circumstances admit of the raising of 

 pork and poultry — and whose plum planting is yet to be begun — to adopt the " only reme- 

 dy that has not failed more frequently than it has succeeded," against the operations of 

 the curculio. But unfortunately for the success of this beneficent plan, it is of the most 

 circumscribed applicability. The great mass of plum growers live in towns and villages, 

 occupying lots ranging in extent from one-eighth to one whole acre, and whose trees, in 

 the garden, or front yard, or wherever else on their limited premises they can find room 

 to '* tuck" them, are already grown — circumstances which render the recommendation of 

 the union of plum orchards and piggeries more easily smiled at than carried out. Yet it is 

 for this class of cultivators, above all others, that an universal remedy against the curcu- 

 lio is demanded. The retired citizen, passing the time pleasantly under the delusion that 

 he has become an agriculturist by virtue of his " park" of a few acres, and the extensive 

 cultivator for the stalls, from whence the citizen retired, can afford to protect their fruit 

 by whatever appliances, and at whatever cost; but even they in most instances, are una- 

 ble to call into requisition the services of hens or hogs, because their parks and planta- 

 tions were not originally planned for hen-yards and hog-pens, their fruit trees having been 

 scattered through their grounds wherever fanc}' or convenience directed. It is plain to see 

 then, that father TnoMAS' prescription of a mallet and sheet, will not suddenly be super- 

 seded by this contrivance, and that the hens will abide by their dunghill, the swine con- 

 tinue to riot in the congenial thoroughfares of the metropolis, and the fallen fruit be left to 

 be gathered and destroyed by human agency, or not at all. 



Somehow, writers upon the curculio seem universally to be possessed of a most amia- 

 ble insanity. They invest the victims of that little pest with unbounded resources. Their 

 grounds are always broad enough for ' orchards,' — the one devoted to plums being already 

 set apart, and filled with full grown trees, nothing of course wanting to convert it into an 

 immense piggery, but forty or fifty rods of fence, which, to be in keeping with the grand 

 conception, shall cost from ten to twenty dollars per rod, herds of swine and flocks of 

 fowls being always at hand to stock it. This is the peculiar vagary of one. Another, in 

 his benevolent hallucination, dispensing with pigs and poultry, prescribes pavements. 

 Though the largeness of comprehension which distinguishes the former philanthropist, can- 

 not be claimed for this, yet his scheme involves bricks, stone quarries, and deposites in 

 bank ad libitum, if not ad infinitum, and provides a separate domain for the usual variety 

 of the lesser fruits, flower beds, and vegetables, each class of which, by the necessities of 

 real life, must occupy a portion of the space which he so liberally dedicates to pave- 

 ments. But neither of these tantalizing lunatics has the disease in its most desparate form. 



The distempered reason of the third, requires the luckless plum grower to be the pro- 

 prietor of whole ranges of well occupied stables, cart loads of whose seething product are 

 pplied to his trees, morning and evening — twice a day, I think, sir? — warm, 

 Itice; his trees, of course, being a long drive down the park, else the remedy to 



