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REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 87 
stroyed by an application of boiling-hot water. The editor of the Ameri- 
ean Entomologist remarks, however, that 
in transplanting young trees from the nurs-— : 
eries, it is not necessary to have the water #2 & pecjn ~ 
too near the boiling point, and that a heat i a 
of 120° to 150° will suttice. The borticul- 
tural editor of the Prairie Farmer doubting —— 
the hot-water remedy, Mr. Riley states that 
this doubt will hold good in referenee to 
large, deep-rooted trees, but that he knows from experience that hot water 
can be used against these root-lice in the nursery, where the greater dam- 
age is done. Hot water has also been recommended to be placed around 
the trunks of such peach trees in the winter as are infested by the peach- 
borer, (Aigeria exitiosa, Say.) 
To destroy common plaut-lice (Aphides) and other insects in the green- 
house and garden, the following remedy has been recommended by M. 
Cloetz, of the Jardim des Plantes, in Paris: Three and one-half ounces 
quassia chips, five drams of stavesacre seeds,* powdered and placed in 
seven pints of water, and boiled until reduced to five pints. 
Dr. Hull recommends dusting slacked lime on the trees or bushes 
when the foliage is wet; syringing with soap-suds or tobacco water, 
or a strong decoction of quassia with soap-suds; also, a weak solution 
of chloride of lime is said by Mr. Andrews to preserve plants from 
insects if sprinkled over them. The following recipe is also highly rec- 
ommended in an English horticultural journal as being almost infallible 
“for mildew, scale, mealy bug, red spider, and thrips:” Two ounces 
flour of sulphur worked into a paste with water, two ounces washing 
soda, one-half ounce common shag tobacco, and a piece of quicklime 
about the size of a duck’s egg. Pour them all into a saucepan with.one 
gallon of water, boil aud stir for a quarter of an hour, and let the whole 
settle until it becomes cold and clear. It should then be poured off, 
leaving the sediment. In using it, add water according to the strength 
cs ere of the foliage. It will keep good for a long time if kept 
closed. 
A question of considerable interest has arisen during the past year 
among the vine-growers of Franee as to whether the disease known by 
the name of pourridie, or rotting, which is in the form of little cankerous 
spots, cutting off the supply of nourishment, and causing the roots of 
the vine to rot, produced by aspecies of rcot-louse belonging to the coccus 
family, and named by Plancheron Phylloxera vastatriz, is not a different 
form of another insect which produces the bag-like galls on some of 
our native North American grape-vine leaves, namely, the Pemphigus 
(Dactylosphera, Shimer) vitifolie of Fitch. This insect appears early 
in June in New York, and forms smal] globular galls the size of a pea, 
which grow on the under-side of the leaves, having a somewhat uneven 
and woolly surface, with a eavity inside. Mr. Riley, of the American 
Agriculturist, however, who has made a specialty of this subject, states 
that in Missouri this insect has proved very injurious to the Clinton 
grape-vine for several years past, at least as tar back as 1864, and gives 
a graphic description of its natural history and habits, as follows: 
A few females, in the spring, station themselves upon the upper sides of the leaf, and 
by constant suction and irritation cause the leaf to swell irregularly on the under side, 
while the upper part of the leaf gradually becomes fuzzy and closes, so that the louse 
at last sinks from view in the cavity of the so-called gall, in the interior cf which she 
* A plant of the genus Delphinium or larkspur, D. staphisagria, the seeds of which 
are narcotic and stimulating, and are used for destroying vermin. 
