STATE HORTICULTURAL fiOCIETY. 251 



tion into a parent beetle, to go forth again on its destructive 

 mission. At that season of the year wheu the blossoms are about 

 to open, wide-mouth jars partially filled with sweetened water and 

 suspended in the branches will be the means of destroying many 

 of the moths. As they do their traveling principally by night, 

 torches, lanterns or lamps, without chimneys, placed about in the 

 orchard on still nights will destroy many, but the one thing most 

 important for the destruction of the coddling moth is the entire 

 destruction by fire or animals of the wind falls and stung fruit. 



Curculio so destructive in the eastern and southern States do but 

 little harm to our plums, as the skin of the fruit of our hardy trees 

 is so tough that hard stinging is required to place the egg in the 

 pit of the plum. The best method for destroying this pest is to 

 spread sheets under the trees, and by jai'ring the trunk and limbs 

 the beetle falls on the sheet, curls up and lies quiet a sufficient 

 length of time to be caught and destroyed. It is advisable to 

 gather up windfalls of the plum and destroy in the same manner 

 as with apples. 



Destruction of trees by mice and rabbits can be easily prevented. 

 They seldom work on nursery stock, except in the dead of winter 

 when their natural food is covered by snow. Grass should not be 

 allowed to grow around the tree as it offers snug hiding places for 

 mice. The workings and runways of these vermin can easily be 

 seen on the fresh snow, and arsenic placed on the cut surface of 

 sweet apples or carrots easily compasses their death; the apples 

 should be placed on sharpened sticks, stuck in the snow in their 

 runways, being careful that domestic animals will not have access 

 to the poison. 



The foregoing presupposes great labor conscientiously performed 

 and if so performed, will prove orcharding in Minnesota an absolute 

 success. 



Want of time precludes the possibility of touching ever so lightly 

 upon the gesthetic side of orcnarding. 



It has been said that "the man who cultivates flowers about his 

 home, will never see his children inmates of the penitentiary." 

 If this be true, and we know that the closer one lives to nature, 

 and the better her ways and workings are understood, the truer 

 and better life one leads. How elevating must be the influence of 

 a perfect orchard, each tree a fragrant bouquet of pink and white 

 blossoms, whose perfume, like the elixir of life, makes the old man 

 young again, carried by clinging associations, adown the long vista 

 of years to the old orchard of his childhood. 



