338 ANNUAL REPORT. 



tural Department grounds, caused by filling up the old Washing- 

 ton and Georgetown canal, but Mr. Saunders thought some of the 

 plants from its runners sent to A. M. Purdy, of Palmyra, New 

 York, may have been preserved. 



The other experiment was with raspberries. Doolittle black 

 cap blossoms were fertilized with pollen from the Philadelphia red, 

 and among the seedlings was this remarkable variation: a raspberry 

 bush of the black cap form, bearing red berries like those of the 

 male parent. This was also buried in the mud. 



The practical lesson from all of the facts should be often 

 stated and reiterated : Choose for seed bearing the hardiest 

 and thriftiest forms of best habits of growth, and when possible 

 fertilize by hand with carefully isolated pollen from the sorts 

 whose quality and season of ripening suit us best; never forgetting, 

 however, that there must be as careful isolation of the pollen as o f 

 the pistils, and not expecting too certain results in every case ; for 

 with the utmost accuracy and care in our work, nature will have 

 her own way sometimes and get the better of our inclosures, 

 and astonish us with new puzzles in reproduction; and more than 

 this, perhaps, is the fact that we have always to deal with the 

 forces of heredity and reversion as to previous mixtures of which 

 we may know nothing whatever. G. 



INSECTICIDES AND OTHER DESTROYERS OF 



INSECTS. 



In a conversation at Philadelphia, with Elisha Moody,of Lockport, 

 New York, he informed me that his firm E. Moody & Sons, nur- 

 serymen and fruit growers, had for two years past sprayed their fruit 

 trees with London Purple, and they have no more trouble with in- 

 sects. They use one pound of the purple to 200 gallons of water, 

 and put it on with a hand pump worked from a barrel of the mix- 

 ture in a wagon, driven about among the trees. As yet they have 

 no better way of keeping it stirred up than to have a man stand by 

 the barrel and stir it with a stick, but are experimenting with a 

 mechanical contrivance for the purpose attached tojthe wagon wheel. 

 They have 20,000 pear trees in one orchard. Their object in using 

 the poison was to destroy the codling moth, spraying the trees 

 when the apples or pears are about the size of bullets, when the 

 calyx is upright and holds the poison long enough to destroy the 



