140 BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. 



have been made, which have resulted, in some of our 

 fruit-growing districts, in the successful introduction 

 of the method of spraying caterpillar-infested leafage 

 with Paris-green, which has long been found service- 

 able in the United States and Canada. 



Paris-green, being an aceto-arsenite of copper, and of 

 a poisonous nature, should be used with great care in 

 mixing, and should never be applied to fruit or to 

 vegetables that are used for food. But the quantity to 

 which, in order to be beneficial, it is requisite to limit 

 application in spraying is excessively small, and our 

 English experiences, as well as those on the Continent 

 of America, where Paris-green has been used regularly 

 in farm and orchard prevention for many years, show 

 that with proper care it may be used with perfect 

 safety.* 



Other mixtures, such as kerosine or paraffin mixed 

 with soft-soap, may be found useful for the same pur- 

 pose, though they have not yet been taken up here, 

 and the American plan of "jarring" the branches 

 smartly, so as to cause the caterpillars to fall on 

 straw scattered below, which can afterwards be set 

 on fire and the caterpillars thus destroyed, is an 

 American remedy of old standing. But, with us, 

 with regard to means of sweeping off the hordes of 

 difierent kinds of caterpillars altogether, when they 

 are ravaging in the spring or early summer for some 

 years back, trials have been made, in many isolated 



* I have not Riven the ijroportions and method of application in 

 the letterpress, because, for safe and effective use, these points, in- 

 cluding method of mixing and of delivering the spray, cautions to be 

 observed in use, and many other very practical considerations, must 

 be studied in detail, for which there is not space in this little book. 

 Those who wish to study them from the beginning will find them in 

 the Government Reports of the U. S. A. Board of Agriculture, also in 

 the Canadian ofhcial returns. The details of the rise and progress of 

 this treatment in this country will be found detailed in my Isth, 14th, 

 and 15th Koports on Injurious Insects, Is. (id. each, Simpkin & Co., 

 Stationers' Hall Court, London, E.C. A short account of all necessary 

 detail, with necessary addresses for supply of material or supply 

 of sprayers, will be found in ' Paris-green, its uses,' etc., a short 

 pamphlet (same publishers), price '2d., but which I am always happy 

 to forward to all applicants gratuitously. 



