27 



decided disadvantage that they apply only after the insect has done 

 all the damnge that it individually can, and that they can conse- 

 quently only tend to diminish the mischief done by the following 

 generation ; hence if these remedies are not generally applied 

 throughout a considerable district, there is always a probability that 

 the best efforts of the most faithful fruit grower will be largely 

 disappointed through the indifference of his neighbors. 



Among the older European authors some other remedial measures 

 are frequently mentioned, but they serve us only to illustrate a con- 

 dition of horticultural enterprise amusingly different from that of 

 Illinois. Thus Kollar speaks of a remedy as chiefly applicable to 

 apples grown in pots ; and Boisduval describes a French practice 

 of killing the larvae inside the apple with an iron needle, afterwards 

 stopping the holes with wax. Of late years, since the advance of 

 the Colorado potato beetle has familiarized fruit growers with the 

 arsenical poisons as insecticides, these have been quite frequently 

 and positively recommended for the codling moth, by high authority, 

 both scientific and practical. 



For example: the Hon. J. N. Dixon, of Iowa, in a prize essay 

 submitted to the State Horticultural Society at its meeting in 1882, 

 says that he considers the arsenic solution as complete a remedy 

 for the codling moth as for the canker worm, continuing, — "When 

 the apples are from the size of a bird-shot to the size of a pea, if 

 the orchard is carefully sprinkled with arsenic water, at the rate of 

 one pound of white arsenic to 200 gallons of water, it will not leave 

 a canker worm, codling worm, tent caterpillar, or Bucculatrix in the 

 orchard." 



Prof. A. J. Cook, of the State Agricultural College of Michigan, 

 says: "It is now settled beyond question that the arsenites are the 

 cheapest and most efficient specihc against the codling moth."* 



Mr. H. Shepley, a fruit grower, of Nevada, Missouri, reported in 

 1884 to the Horticultural Society of that State an account of his experi- 

 ments in spraying orchards with London purple, and a synopsis of this 

 article as pubhshed in the Country Gentleman for June 12, 1S84, is 

 cited. He says: "We have never known an instance out of many 

 trials where this treatment [spraying with Paris green] was not en- 

 tirely successful with the canker worm, or where it did not destroy 

 most of the codling worms, and give much fair fruit which before 

 was nearly ruined wath this insect. In rainy weather it should be re- 

 peated two or three times, the first applications being washed oft'." 



Attention has also been especially called, from time to time, to 

 the use of lime as an insecticide for the codling moth, these recom- 

 mendations being apparently based upon statements of the late Dr. 

 E. S. Hull, of Alton, formerly State Horticulturist of Illinois. I do 

 not find any experiments recorded by Dr. Hull himself, but in the 

 "Prairie Farmer" for November 20, 1880, we read: — "But a safer 

 insecticide, and we think equally sure to kill all soft-bodied insects, 

 is air-slaked lime, — lime slaked into fine powder by exposure to the 

 air and freely dusted over the leaves. The late Dr. Hull, of this 



* ■'Exporim(ints with Insectioido-i." publishocl in the Proceedings of the First. Second 

 and Third Meetings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, p. 112. 



