42 FIRST AKNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and if it fails to produce a tingling sensation, it should be rejected as 

 comparatively worthless. A pure and fresh article should be purchase- 

 able at about forty cents the pound. This quantity should suffice to 

 keep a garden of ordinary size free from the currant-worm for an en- 

 tire season — to be applied as often as a fresh hatching or a new brood 

 makes its appearance. With six pounds of the powder, a gardener in 

 England cleared 3,000 gooseberry bushes from the larvse which were 

 thickly infesting them, by simply dusting them with a large pepper 

 box. 



In its liquid application, one pound of the powder may be mixed 

 with from twenty to twenty-fire gallons of water, or an ounce and a 

 half (about three tablespoonfuls) in a pail of water, and finely sprayed 

 over the plants. As hellebore kills not only by contact, but unlike 

 pyrethrum, also by being eaten by the larvae, the addition to the liquid 

 of a small quantity of flour or any other substance that may give it 

 greater adhesiveness, will promote its operating as a protection for a 

 number of days following, from such larvae as may have escaped the 

 spraying or are subsequently hatched from the egg. 



Insects against which it may be used. — In addition to its being 

 a specific for the destruction of the currant-worm, it will probably be 

 found equally efficacious against most of the ^' saw-flies" as they are 

 popularly called — four-winged insects belonging to the family of 

 Tenthridinidffi, of which the currant-worm may be taken as a repre- 

 sentative. Its virtue has been tested upon the strawberry- worm — 

 Emphytus maculatus, Norton and Abbot's white-pine worm — Lophyrus 

 Ahhotii Leach ; and it may be expected to operate with equal success 

 upon the Fir saw-fly — Lophyrus ahietis Harris, Le Conte's saw-fly of 

 the pines and fir — L. Le Contei Fitch, and the other species that in- 

 fest our evergreens. It should also be valuable for use against the 

 saw-fly of the Tartarian honeysuckle — Abia caprifoliuni Norton, which 

 is often so destructive to its foliage. It may also be used for destroy- 

 ing the " slugs" which abound to such an injurious extent upon our 

 rose-bushes, pear-trees and raspberries, viz, ; Selandria rosce Harris, 

 S. cerasi, Peck, and *S^. richi Harris. To all of these larvse the liquid 

 may be conveniently applied by means of a sprinkling-pot, the hydro- 

 nette or the aquaject. The following method of using the liquid 

 upon rose-bushes has been recommended : one tablespoonful steeped 

 in hot water for ten minutes, diluted in five quarts of cold water, to 

 which a small quantity of soft soap has been added to make it adhere 

 better to the leaves, and applied through a syringe or fine rose of a 

 watering can, while the leaves are still wet with dew. It is said that 

 two applications, three or four weeks apart, will efi'ectually repress the 

 slug each season. 



