348 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Western State. I think upon the State House grounds there are some 

 twenty-five or twenty-eight of the maple trees that have been killed this 

 past summer by the borers. It is almost impossible to prevent that in- 

 sect from destroying the trees— or it was found so this year— because it 

 is an entirely new attack. But upon investigation you will find streaks 

 of black bark around the tree or up the side. By removing that you will 

 find that the borer has bored inside. A tree that seems alive one day, in 

 a few days will be wilted and dead. There is only one remedy for the 

 borers. If you will take a gallon of soft soap and a gallon of warm 

 water and stir in it a pound of crude carbolic acid or a half pound of 

 refined carbolic acid, then dilute with eight gallons of water and let 

 stand over night, you can destroy the borers by spraying your tree bodies 

 with a sti-ong spray about the last of May or the first of June. Spray 

 as strongly as you can, so as to drive the mixture into every crevice, and 

 you will probably destroy the little larvae. 



Fruit gi-owing in Indiana should be greater than it is. The State 

 Board of Forestry intends to recommend the growing of timber on the 

 waste, barren lands of the State. That is to be the policy of the board for 

 the future, to reforest the broken, waste lands of the State, of which 

 there only lacks a little of being 700.000 acres. Instead of adopting the 

 plan of the Eastern States of purchasing all of the waste land in the 

 State and of foresting it at the State's expense, the board proposes that 

 the State establish a reservation of 2,000 acres, to be located in those 

 counties which will best demonstrate forest growing. They must prove 

 to the State that it is a profitable investment, and then leave the matter 

 to the citizens and the investments of the State. This waste land should 

 be No. 1 fruit growing land. Perhaps most of you know as much about 

 that as I do, and maybe more. Why isn't that waste land in Indiana 

 No. 1 fruit growing landV If it is, and it can be purchased at from three 

 to eight dollars an acre, why is it not a profitable investment? I find 

 this difticulty, however. This waste, broken land is not suited to the 

 retention of moisture, and wherever the forests have been removed the 

 land is practically worthless; it produces nothing simply because of lack 

 of moisture. It is bordering on the same state of affairs that exist in 

 Austria. Several centuries ago Austria was one of the richest wooded 

 countries in Europe. Those forests have all been removed. The removal 

 has made these lands absolutely worthless; it has destroyed their fertility. 

 In so far as forestry will demonstrate whether that is a fact or not, it 

 ought to go hand in hand with fruit growing. I suggest to the members 

 of this organization that they go hand in hand with the State Board of 

 Foresti-y in the matter of experimenting with fruit growing on these 

 lands. We ought to have in the State of Indiana a gi-eat commercial fruit 

 growing interest, instead of having the gi-owing of fruit confined to the 

 small orchards on the farm for home consumption. Indiana is between 

 the thirty-seventh and fortieth latitude, and that ought to make it suitable 



