FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 83 



holes had been cut the size of a pea; as soon as the peach softened, the 

 bees would go in and clean it out. It would have been useless to ship, 

 and was perhaps as good a use ^s the peach could have been put to. The 

 same thing is true with cracked grapes. 



In regard to the bumble bee; while there are many insects which help 

 to fertilize the fruit, your red clover has to dejiend almost wholly on the 

 bumble bee, for fertilization. How wilfully we have destroyed the 

 bumble bee and allowed our hired men and boys to do it — (I never knew 

 of the girls or women exterminating bumble bees). 



Some ten or eleven years ago, we saw those beautiful summer bees 

 trying to get into our buildings everywhere; why? Because we had a 

 series of wet springs, which moulded tlie mouse nests, and they came to 

 the barns to make their nests. We ought not to hunt them out of these 

 places; I think it would be to the advantage of every farmer to resolve to 

 never allow them to be destroyed, as far as his influence extends, because 

 by so doing you put your hands in your pockets and pay big prices for 

 clover seed. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 



CUERANTS AND GOOSEBERRIES. 



■ J, N, STEARNS, KALAMAZOO. 



These fruits have been among the best paying of the small fruits for 

 the past few years. This I attribute to the difficulty many experience 

 with the currant worm. Formerly, nearly every farmer's garden had a 

 supply of currants, but now it is a rare thing to see healthy bushes on the 

 farm. It is thought to be a very difficult thing to keep the bushes free 

 from worms, but we find it much easier than to fight the potato bug, 

 which everyone expects to have to do. It is but little work to rid the 

 bushes of the worms if attended to in time. This worm first appears 

 just as the plant is coming into blossom, before the leaf is quite full 

 grown, appearing in the bottom of the bush near the ground, and at first 

 is very minute, so it is necessary to look very close to discover it. But 

 this is the stage at which it should be exterminated, and if thoroughly 

 done you will see no more that season. But you may be sure that if you 

 allow only a few to escape and mature, you will have a second appear- 

 ance about the time the fruit commences to ripen; then they must be 

 fought with the hellebore, and it is much more difficult to rid the bushes 

 of them than with the Paris green on their first appearance. My mode 

 of destroying them is as follows: On their first appearance I spray the 

 bushes thoroughly in the lower part, and be sure to go a little higher 

 than any appearance of worms, with Paris green, ^ pound to 50 gallons 

 of water. I usually use the 50 gallons of the Bordeaux mixture, as it 

 serves to head off any mildew on plant or fruit, although this is not neces- 

 sary to destroy the currant worm, and the destruction of the worm is 

 very essential, for if the bushes once become defoliated by this insect, 

 they are rarely brought back to their original vigor. I call to mind a 



