GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT SAWFLY. 105 



clearwfi aicay the earth heneath the hushes, seems to be the 

 best and surest measure." 



Mr. Arthur Ward, writing from The Gardens, Stoke Edith 

 Park, Hereford, noted : — " Currants and Gooseberries out in 

 the open garden have kept quite free from caterpillars (on 

 the open gromid) ; this, I think, was owing to the trees being 

 dressed with lime early in spring. We have had very fine 

 crops, and the flavour is excellent. Currant trees on the wall, 

 which were not dressed with lime, were attacked. The attack 

 commenced on the bottom of the tree on the leaves nearest 

 the ground." 



At Callendar Park Gardens, Falkirk, Mr. T. Boyd men- 

 tioned : — "I dress over all my Gooseberry ground with gas- 

 lime in early spring before forking over the soil, and have 

 not seen one of these caterpillars for three years." And Mr. 

 Thomas H. Hart, of Park Farm, Kingsworth, Kent, also 

 reported : — *' I am now satisfied that I have benefited by the 

 application of gas-lime between my bushes. Grubs there 

 certainly have been, but, whilst they have almost stripped 

 other bushes of their leaves, those on the dressed ground are 

 little the worse for the attack." 



When the caterpillars are observable on the bushes, hand- 

 picking, or shaking down and destroying, syringing, or dusting 

 with various dry dressings, sulphur more especially, have all 

 been found to answer. 



Hand-jncking has been especially recommended, or the less 

 tedious, though less complete, way of shaking the caterpillars 

 down ; or syringing, and then shaking and destroying the 

 grubs by trampling, or throwing hot lime on them. The 

 plan of having freshly tarred boards placed below the bushes 

 to retain them as they fall, or beating down on to cloths 

 and collecting the vermin and destroying them, also answers 

 well. 



For syrinfiinr/, the following mixture has been recom- 

 mended : — Three gallons of warm soap-suds, half a pound of 

 soda, half a pound of salt, and a handful of soot ; the bushes 

 to be syringed on a still day when the sun is off them. Half 

 an hour after the application the plants should have clean 

 water dashed over them. It is stated that this mixture does 

 not injure either the young fruit or leaves, and soap-suds by 

 themselves syringed on the bushes have been found useful. 

 In short, anything that annoys the caterpillar, and makes 

 the leafage distasteful to it without injuring the leaves, will be 

 of service ; but at the same time the fluid applications are 

 hardly practicable on the large scale of fruit farming. 



Dry dressings are more easily applied on a broad scale, and 

 amongst these flour of sulphur has been especially recom- 



