350 PLUM. 



Mr. J. Masters (before quoted) gave me a good instance of 

 the effects of this treatment. He mentioned a plantation of 

 Pkims which had been severely infested for years with cater- 

 pillar blight, and likewise so neglected that the ground was 

 smothered with weeds and Couch Grass. In order to clear 

 these Mr. Masters suggested that the land should be breast- 

 ploughed and surface-burned. This was done in September, 

 and in October and November the trees were greased, but no 

 moths were caught, although on land adjoining, where no 

 breast-ploughing had been done, moths were found by 

 thousands. 



Disturbing the surface-soil, so as to throw out the chrysalids, 

 was a remedy suggested (some fifty years or more ago, by the 

 Imp. & Koyal Ag. Soc. of Vienna) as useful where it could be 

 managed, l3ut excepting in garden cultivation, or with very 

 special kinds of cropping, it is difficult to carry it out. 



Late pruning, and burning all the pruned-off shoots, is a 

 very good practice, because the Winter Moth is considered to 

 lay her eggs by preference towards the ends of the shoots ; 

 therefore where these are cut off and burnt, when the chief 

 laying season is over, which might be put about the middle of 

 December, much infestation is got rid of. 



I had a very good note on this subject, on February 6th, 

 1889, from Mr. C. Lee Campbell, of Grlewstone Court, Eoss. 

 In this, after some observations on attempted measures for 

 checking infestation, he suggested a more effectual remedy — 

 consisting in cutting off the ends of the branches on which 

 the eggs have been deposited, and burning them : — "I have 

 found that an enormous proportion of the eggs are deposited 

 at the end of every branch pruned in the autumn, as much 

 as fifty eggs being found on one branch. At a moderate 

 calculation, my men have thus destroyed some 6,000,000 eggs 

 on 5000 to 6000 Pyramid fruit trees within the past months, 

 in addition to a very large number caught through greasing 

 the stems."— (C. L. C.) 



The above observations refer almost entirely to methods of 

 prevention of attack of " Winter Moth," and " Mottled Umber 

 Moth," which is almost precisely similar in its habits, or 

 other destructive attacks caused by caterpillars of wingless 

 moths, which obviously fall under the power of the same kind 

 of preventive measures. 



But now passing on to remedies which can be applied to 

 the attack when the caterpillars are ravaging on the trees. 



WJiat 2ve need is a " wholesale treatment " which may be 

 brought to bear at one time on all the kinds of caterpillars 

 alike, whether loopers, or web-nest making caterpillars, " Small 

 Ermines," or "Tortrix "caterpillars, or any other of the 



