Reports to various Correspondents. 63 



matter, so that if two or more dressings are applied soon after each 

 other, the cuticle of the slug may be reached. Dressings of salt and 

 lime are successful in destroying these pests, two or three dressings 

 beino: given, the second one some ten to fifteen minutes after the 

 first. Salt applied at the rate of four or five bushels per acre, and 

 lime at the rate of ten to twelve bushels per acre, will often destroy 

 these noxious creatures, if done over twicG in succession, salt 

 especially having an injurious effect on the mucous membrane. It 

 is useless, of course, to dress a field in the hot part of the day, or in 

 very dry weather. The dressings should be applied when the slugs 

 and snails are active, that is after heavy rains, and in the evening 

 and cmiy morning, before the sun is up ; for as the sun rises the 

 slugs, &c., disappear. Slacked lime has no effect upon them, but 

 soot and Kme, the latter fresh, soon destroys them if applied two or 

 three times. The best substance of all seems, however, to be xohite 

 hydro-oxide of calcium in a 1 to 2 per cent, solution. Snails are more 

 difficult to destroy, owing to their retracting their bodies into the shell 

 and closing the aperture ; and as they can live for several years 

 without food, they offer many difficulties in the methods of destruc- 

 tion. Dressings of soot seem to be the most beneficial ; the soot 

 making the plant and ground obnoxious to the snails, drives them 

 from the land. Nitrate of soda is likewise a very good dressing, 

 both for slugs and snails, as well as for stimulating plant-growth. 

 Snails have many natural enemies in birds. Thrushes and Black- 

 birds especially do much good in keeping them in check. Ducks, 

 Starlings, Books, and Pigeons also eat them greedily ; Moles, Shrews, 

 and Toads eat slugs. Several species of mites ai-e parasitic on 

 slugs, but do not seem to affect them injuriously. In gardens, slugs 

 and snails may be destroyed by various traps : pieces of turnip and 

 cabbage-leaves, spread upon the ground, collected at night, will be 

 found to have attracted numbers from the surrounding soil ; they can 

 then be easily put into a pail of lime and so destroyed. Bran made 

 into a mash placed here and there attracts large numbers, which can 

 then be collected and destroyed. Brewers' grains or oatmeal also 

 answer well. But in the fields the most practicable way of destroy- 

 ing them is by dressings, as above stated, of white hydro-oxide of 

 calcium or of lime and soot or lime and salt, applied especially in 

 damp weather, when these pests are most active. As invasion of 

 slugs frequently comes from adjoining woods or fields a trench 

 should be dug around the dressed field with gas lime in it to stop 

 fresh invasion. Several gardeners have told me they have experienced 

 very successful results by using ordinary wood-ash, dusted over the 



