156 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [14] 



sometimes wilt badly. Generally the borer enters the main stem 

 near the root, but often at the apex of the lower leaves, which then 

 discolor, droop and wilt. If the borer has entered the main stem, 

 now below the surface after repeated workings of the soil, the earth 

 must be scraj)ed away to the depth of two inches, more or less. 

 The main stem on being pressed between the fingers, will be found 

 soft and hollow, often nearly girdled from the inside. Here, with a 

 penknife, I slit the stem, and proceed upward until the inside shows 

 normal growth again. Often I have extracted from such a slit two or 

 three specimens, measuring from one-fourth of an inch or less to one 

 inch or more, some in the main stem, others having proceeded into 

 side branches, even into the peduncles of the leaves. Next working 

 with the knife downward in the direction of the root, you may find 

 more. Let your work be thorough ; be not satisfied with finding only 

 one borer ; lay bare to your eyes the whole inside of the stem as far 

 as the borer has been feeding. One single borer left will absorb 

 nearly all the sap flowing upward to feed the plant. 



The squash vine calloses speedily if some dry dust is rubbed on 

 the wound ; then covering the injured stem with a little mound of 

 fine soil, the sap flows again in its natural direction, and the plant 

 recuj)erates soon. I have plants growing finel}^ now where repeated 

 incisions (the work was not done thorough from the start) had not 

 left more than one-eighth of an inch of bark. If not layered already, 

 layer immediately. The vine strikes root rapidly in mellow moist 

 soil, and as yet I have never found a borer above the layer, nor a 

 second attack in a callosed stem ; and it might be a good preventive 

 to slit the stem of the young plant from the root to the third leaf, 

 sprintle with mellow soil, and layer at the fourth leaf. Then again, I 

 saw to-day some layered plants growing thriftily, where by repeated 

 incisions and workings the main stem had been severed from the main 

 root. 



Change of Soil for Strawberry Plants. 

 At a meeting of the American Horticultural Society, Mr. Smith, of 

 Wisconsin, stated that insects had been a great hinderance to him in 

 raising strawberries, until he practiced setting the plants in soil that 

 had not grown strawberries in several years, kept them well cultivated, 

 raised one crop, and immediately plowed the vines under as soon as 

 the crop was gathered, when he had no more trouble with insects. 

 {Country Gentleman, Oct. 7, 1886, p. 753.) 



Brine for the Currant-worm. 

 I am indebted to Mrs. Lucy T. Chrisman, of Chrisman, Va., for the 

 communication of the following method of protection from the cur- 

 rant-worm, Nematus ventricosus Klug. 



I have for three seasons gotten the better of the currant and goose- 

 berry-worm by sprinkling the bush thoroughly, so as to wet each 

 worm and the eggs under the leaves, with brine. It requires a pretty 



