Ailanthiculture. DNF 
propose to have two crops as in France,* our first crop must be 
placed on the trees in early summer (June and July), and the first 
vegetation will be fed off the tree while it is yet young and by 
comparison small; a check follows, in another six weeks or two 
months a fresh vegetation is ready for the silkworms again to be 
fed off. I am convinced in my own mind that by this means a 
loss of luxuriance occurs, and that a far greater weight of foliage 
in this country would be obtained by allowing the tree its full 
growth till August and September, and then placing on it the 
larvee half-grown. In this way for three months the tree is in full 
vigour of vegetation; its roots are spreading, its foliage massive, 
its trunk increasing in size, its vigour so superabundant as then 
not to receive harm from an entire denudation of leaves, while a 
second growth of leaves appears, after the worms have spun their 
cocoons, sufficiently vigorous to make up for the check it has re- 
ceived. Moreover, it is evident that the labour and cost required 
for the one crop will be much less than that required for two crops : 
nevertheless, experience may probably teach in time, that on some 
warm and sunny spots two crops may pay better than one. 
With reference to their enemies : when small, ants carry them off 
—this was much complained of by Lady Dorothy Nevill, and also 
was observed by Mr. Calvert of East Bergholt, Suffolk, as occur- 
ring in his Ailanthery; I suspect the Formica rufa would prove a 
formidable enemy. Still it is an easy matter to destroy ants’ nests 
in the neighbourhood of Ailantheries to such an extent that the 
loss from them would be slight. Spiders, earwigs and lady- 
birds (?) prey upon the young larve, wasps find them out when 
half-grown, (i. e. before they become greyish-white), and carry 
them off; T’o avoid all these enemies 1 suggest that a nursery be 
formed for the protection of the young larve tll near their third 
moult. The nursery should be covered in with canvass or other 
material, having a mesh so small that these enemies would be 
excluded. One tree in full vigour ought to nourish at least 5,000 
Jarvee up to their middle age; I fed last summer more than 1,000 
larvee up to middle age on a tree planted last March, which con- 
sequently had attained a very moderate amount of luxuriance. 
Carabi and other Geodephaga wiil destroy the larve. I was 
much vexed in the summer of 1864 to find some of my finest 
* In the Revue de Sériciculture, 10th December, 1865, M. Meéneville 
states that he obtained in his laboratory, in the summer of 1865, four genera- 
tions of B. Cynthia, and that the last generation bad produced eggs, so that a 
fifth brood might have been attempted, but it was feared that the cold of 
October would destroy them. 
VOL, V. THIRD SERIES, PART II,—-APRIL, 1866, Q 
