38 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA : 



These results show that the Majetin apple tree, which 

 is free from blight, is a much laroer consumer of lime, and 

 it is most probably to the presence of this substance that 

 such immunity from blight is due. The Crab, on the 

 contrary, seems to have absorbed a much greater quantity 

 of clayey matters, which have not been able to protect it 

 from the attack of these insects. The total amount of 

 ashes in each case was remarkably close. The result of 

 the analyses seems to show the importance of a limey soil 

 for apples ; but in this matter I hardly feel competent to 

 pass an opinion, as the experiences of fruit-growers neces- 

 sarily vary very much. Still the matter is worthy of 

 consideration, as in a comparatively new country, where 

 apples, as well as other trees, are often planted without 

 due consideration for either soils or di-ainage, and, when 

 the failures come, all is attriliuted to the attacks of 

 blights of various kinds, and little or nothing to neglect, 

 and the want of a little circumspection when choosing 

 the site and preparing the land for the purpose of an 

 orchard. 



A few words as to the life-history of the " Woolly Aphis " 

 will, I trust, be useful, and this embodies the experience 

 of many writers, both scientific and practical, in addition 

 to my own long experience as an horticulturist in this 

 colony. 



The " Woolly Aphis," then, may be described as an 

 insect living in hollows and in crevices on the roots, 

 trunk, and limbs of the apple tree. They live in numerous 

 communities, and produce, by the pricking of their 

 beak-like rostrum, the very unsightly swellings or 

 excrescences so well-known to orchardists here and else- 

 where, and by this means absorb the juices of the tree, 

 which, if not attended to in time, will lose its vigour, and 

 often die. 



Buckton says that the generations from the Queen 

 Aphis vary very much, both in form and size, from their 

 parents. They are of various shades of red or brown, 

 and are less flattened, and longer in the body. When 

 first born they have a most disproportionally long and 



