366 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



hide themselves for a seasen, but in due time they come forth and 

 follow the injunction of their mother to "go thou and do likewise." 

 And they are insects, and they put in good time this year. 



Then, there is is the potato bug, another insect, but it failed to put 

 in an appearance this year. Whether they were all frozen to death 

 or whether they have decided to move to Sunnyside or Kennewick, 

 where the climate is more congenial, is a mystery. I became 

 slightly acquainted with the tent worm, though it called only long 

 enough to give vis the parting blessing this year. Then there is the 

 cutworm. "From whence cometh it?'' It is like the wind. "I cannot 

 tell from whence it cometh or whither it goeth," but it is to be hoped 

 that they have gone so far that they will never return. This year 

 their names were legion. Then there is the chinch bug, quintes- 

 sence of the bed bug; the only difference I can see between them is 

 that one derives its sustenance from the human body while the 

 other subsists on the sap of cereals. And so we might enumerate. 

 It is like the writing of books, there is no end. Every year new in- 

 sects come onto the stage of action, until it seems as though the 

 plagues of Egypt are about to be enacted over again. So I would 

 advise every member to buy Prof. Green's "Amateur Fruit Growing" 

 and arm himself with all the paraphernalia of war, for you are bound 

 to fight bugs all the rest of your mortal life. 



In the Horticultural Gleaner, R. H. Price gives a method of pro- 

 tecting fruit trees from ravages of rabbits, etc. His way would 

 certainly appear a practical and efficient one, since he has saved one 

 large orchard by the treatment, while others have used it with great 

 success. A gallon of common white lead paint of the ordinary 

 thickness to be used on buildings is taken, and to it is added one 

 tablespoonful of Paris green. The two are well mixed together; 

 after which the dirt is removed for an inch or so around the base of 

 the tree,and a good coating of paint applied to a height of eighteen 

 inches on the trunk. A rabbit comes along, gnaws off a piece of 

 the bark and dies. Insects, particularly borers, attempt to drill 

 through the painted wood and die. The average cost of this treat- 

 ment for each tree the correspondent estimates at 1^^ cents. As they 

 require painting over only every two years the process is compar- 

 atively inexpensive.— T2ie Market Garden. 



Degeneration of Fkuits.— Will varieties of fruit degenerate? 

 has long been an open question with the fruit growers of the Old 

 World, the tread of opinion being against the Knightion theory; 

 but the opposition to it has been mainly on physiological grounds. 

 Since the discovery of the operations of minute fungi, which after 

 a while find a certain variety to be a good field for their opera- 

 tions, and which then travel with the young plants raised, the ob- 

 jections are weakening. Physiologically, there is no reason that a 

 variety should wear out, but in practice it is found that something 

 happens, and new varieties are necessary.— i*/ee/2an's Monthly. 



