INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 201 



Joseph Banks traced its origin to a nursery in Sloane 

 Street ; and at first he was led to conckide that it had 

 been imported witli some apple-trees from France. On 

 writing, however, to gardeners in that country, he found 

 it to be wholly unknown there. It was therefore, if not 

 a native insect, most probably derived from North Ame- 

 rica, from whence apple-trees had also been imported by 

 the proprietor of that nursery. Whatever its origin, it 

 spread rapidly. At first it was confined to the vicinity 

 of the metropolis, where it destroyed thousands of trees. 

 But it has now found its way into other parts of the king- 

 dom, particularly into the cyder counties; and in 1810 

 so many perished from it in Gloucestershire, that, if 

 some mode of destroying it were not discovered, it was 

 feared the making of cyder must be abandoned. This 

 valuable discovery, it is said, has since been made ; the 

 application of the spirit of tar to the bark being recom- 

 mended as effectual*. Sir Joseph Banks long ago extir- 

 pated it from his own apple-trees, by the simple method 

 of taking off all the rugged and dead old bai'k, and then 

 scrubbing the trunk and branches with a hard brush''. 



Our more dainty and delicate fruits, at least such as 

 are usually so accounted, the apricot, the peach, and the 



^ A solution of quick-lime is recomraendetl in the Gardener's Ma- 

 gazine for January 1828, a periodical work which every friend of 

 Horticulture ought to possess. 



^ This Aphis is evidently the insect described in Illiger's Maqazin, 

 i. 450. under the name of A. lanigcra, as having done great injury to 

 the apple-trees in the neighbourhood of Bremen in 1801. That it is 

 an Aphis and no Coccus is clear from its oral rostrum and the wings 

 of the male, of which Sir Joseph Banks possesses an admirable draw- 

 ing by Mr. Bauer. On this Aphis see Forsyth, 2G5; Monthly Mag. 

 xxxii. 320 ; and also for August 1811 ; and Sir .loseph Banks in the 

 Horticultural Socieii/s Transactions, ii. 162. Those Aphides that 

 trau'ipirc a cottony excretion are now considered as belonging to a 

 distinct genus, under the name of Myxoxyla, 



