CURCULIO— VERSUS UJME AND SULPHUR, 



world has ever known. Although Britain is by no means a propitious climate, for fruit, 

 (we believe Voltaire said the only ripe fruit England yielded was a baked apple,) the dis- 

 plays of grapes, peaches, pine-apples, and other choice pomonal treasures, at these shows, 

 are in point of size and beauty, if not in flavor, hardly to be equaled by any part of the 

 world where these separate fruits grow naturallj^, Avith all the advantages of a genial 

 climate. 



Our attention, however, was most attracted by the specimens of exotic plants grown by 

 the leading florists and gardeners, and shown at these exhibitions. Species, that we 

 usually know only as lean and indifferent in habit — because all attention to high develop- 

 ment is denied them, here showed the same superiority to the specimens as commonly 

 grown, that a fine thorough-bred animal does over a lean, starved creature of the coun- 

 try stock. It was not merely that the flowers were finer, or the plants healthier, or the 

 foliage fresher, but that the whole plant had been developed with a perfection of growth, 

 symmetry, and luxuriance, that we had never seen elsewhere, and that, in fiict, has never 

 been seen until the last ten years. 



We give, to illustrate our remarks, three very accurate portraits of rare plants shown 

 at these exhibitions last year. Most of our readers, who have a taste for exotics, will 

 understand at a glance how different these specimens, loaded with flowers at every point, 

 fresh with health in every pore, are from the same things as most of us know them in our 

 collections. It is one thing to be able to keep plants alive, and another to bring them to 

 the highest development which art and nature conjointly make possible. 



THE CUR CULIO— VERSUS LIME AND SULPHUR. 



BY THOMAS W. LUDLOW, Jr., YONKERS, N. Y. 



A. J. Downing, Esq. — As as it appears by a writer in the last number of the Horti- 

 culturist, that Mr. Longworth, of Cincinnati, has not as j'et succeeded in preventing the 

 attacks of the curculio, and that his theory is wrong; that the instinct of the insect teach- 

 es it not to deposit its eggs in the fruit of trees paved underneath, or those leaning over 

 water, or in any such situations, where its eggs cannot be hatched, or the grub protected 

 during its transformation, I must beg him, as well as all the unsuccessful cultivators of 

 smootli skin fruit, not to despair, for there is a remedy at hand, and a very simple one, too. 



To wit — (for facts are all that are wanted in this matter,) having about t\venty plum 

 trees, which have blossomed freely for the last six years, but have never ripened any fruit, 

 I was induced, by reading a notice in the Horticulturist last year, of the efficacj^ of lime, 

 to try two trees, hy syringing them with white-wash made of unslaked lime, with a hand- 

 fid or two of flour of sulphur mixed through it. 



Just after the fall of the blossom, I observed that much of the fruit was stung. Then, 

 in order to give the lime and sulphur a fair chance, I shook the trees, and gathered about 

 thirty curculios, after which each tree was syringed with a ]iailful of white-wash and 

 the above quantity of sulphur, which was repeated twice more, allowing three daj-s to in- 

 tervene between each application. 



I am now happy to state, that one of the trees is so heavily laden with plums, that I 

 obliged to prop the limbs. It is a common variet}'', but however, I invite all those 

 e inclined, to come and see it, as it is a rare thing in these parts, whore even com- 



