68 



round the butt, under the ridiculous idea that the Curculio could thus 

 be prevented from getting at the plums. Again: Mr. Mitchell, of 

 Pennsylvania, writes to the New York Farmers' Club, that having 

 been advised in the Proceedings of that Club to apply kerosene with 

 a feather to young cabbage plants, in order to keep off flea-beetles 

 {Hdltica,) he had tried it, and thereby killed 200 plants. {New York 

 8e7n. Tribune, June 26, 1866.) On the other hand, G. Goodsill, of 

 McHenry Co., in North Illinois, asserts that he applied coal oil with 

 a feather to young cabbage plants, in order to keep off flea-beetles, 

 Diahrotica vittata, Pabr,,) without any injurious effects. {Prairie 

 Farmer, April 1, 1865, p. 234.) Again: "AV. T. W.," of Belleview, 

 Iowa, says that he "lost one set of trees, some fifteen years since, by 

 greasing them to keep off the rabbits, and would no more think 

 of greasing fruit-trees than of chopping them down." {Ibid. Janu- 

 ary 6, 1866, p. 5.) And Mr. J. C. Plumb, of Madison, Wisconsin, 

 asserts that he "has seen thousands of trees, from the nursery graft 

 to the bearing size, ruined by greasy applications;" that if the trees 

 are greased in winter, "the grease should be washed off by lye or soft 

 soap in the spring," and that "the worst possible time to apply grease 

 is in the winter; and the same amount which would cause death, if 

 applied then, would be harmless if applied during the flow of sap in 

 the growing season." On the other hand, "Young Sprout," of San 

 Jose, says : "I have greased my trees for the last three winters with 

 equal parts of lard and coal oil, and in the spring washed off witli 

 strong lye, and I have good thrifty trees." {Ibid, March 10, 1866, 

 p. 151.) Lastly, which is the most important consideration of all, 

 I find that there is a very general prejudice, both among practical and 

 among theoretical men, against the application of oily substances to 

 vegetable organisms. The subject is certainly a most difficult and 

 important one, and the evidence rather contradictory; and it will 

 require a series of carefully conducted experiments, which I hope to 

 complete during the ensuing year, in order to arrive at any conclu- 

 sive and satisfactory results. Probably benzine, as it evaporates more 

 quickly and completely than kerosene (and, by the way, it is also 

 much cheaper,) may be the least injurious of any of the oily appli- 

 cations; and perhaps all these oily substances may bear to be consid- 

 erably diluted without losing their efficacy. Nothing but actual ex- 

 periments, however, on an extensive scale can solve satisfactorily these 

 and similar problems. 



Statement 5th. — In June, 1867, I used an old painter's brush, 

 which had been worn to a stump, to scrub off the young newly-hatched 

 Bark-lice from the larger limbs of an infested tree; and found it per- 



