INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 201 



ultimately the destruction of the tree. Whence this 

 pest was first introduced is not certainly known. Sir 

 Joseph Banks traced its origin to a nursery in Sloane 

 Street ; and at first he was led to conclude that it had 

 been imported with some apple-trees from France. On 

 writing, however, to gardeners in that country, he found 

 it to be wholly unknown there. It was therefore, if 

 not a native insect, most probably derived from North 

 America, from whence apple-trees had also been im- 

 ported by the proprietor of that nursery. Whatever 

 its origin, it spread rapidly. At first it was confined to 

 the vicinity of the metropolis, where it destroyed thou- 

 sands of trees. But it has now found its way into other 

 parts of the kingdom, particularly into the cyder coun- 

 ties; and in 1810 so many perished from it in Glouces- 

 tershire, that, if some mode of destroying it were not 

 discovered, it was feared the making of cyder must be 

 abandoned. This valuable discovery, it is said, has 

 since been made ; the application of the spirit of tar to 

 the bark being recommended as effectual^. Sir Joseph 

 Banks long ago extirpated it from his own apple-trees, 

 by the simple method of taking off all the rugged and 

 dead old bark, and then scrubbing the trunk and 

 branches with a hard brush. 



Our more dainty and delicate fruits, at least such as 



^ This Apliis is evidently the insect described in Illigers Magazine, 

 i, 450. under the name of yl. Ifinigera, as having done great injury to the 

 apple-trees in the neighbourhood of Bremen in 1801. Tliat it is an 

 Aphis and no Coccus is clear from its orai rostrum and the wings of the 

 male, of which Sir Joseph Banks possesses an admirable drawing by Mr. 

 Bauer. On this Aphis see Forsyth, 265 ; Monthly Mag. xxxii. 320; and 

 also for August 181 1 ; and Sir Joseph Banks in the Horticultural Society's 

 T runs actions, \\, \Q-2, 



