The Caiia itait Ilorticttltnrist. 



235 



Reply by T. M. Grover, Xorwooil, Out. 



This oak, of which it is said a few 

 top liml)s die yearly, is probably too 

 large to be permanently preserved. 

 The death of an additional part is per- 

 haps due to the root being very long 

 in some parts and reaching a soil unsuit- 

 able to nourish it. It has got to a 

 stratum of rock, wet clay, or got expos- 

 ed to some injury or change by drain- 

 age, excavation or mutilation. but 

 there are plenty of men in London wlio 

 will ascend that tree and cut out the 

 dead limb ; and fortunately the oak is 

 one of the few trees that does not 

 depend on the regularity of outlines for 

 its beauty and, no matter how broken 

 up, it may live grand and safe for 

 generations. 



The Gooseberry Fruit-worm. 



(Diikniiiui coivoltitclla.) 



69. I send to-day specimen gooseberrie.-; 

 containing worms referred to by you in June 

 HoRTicui.TDRisr. If you keep them a few 

 days they will make a hole but will not leave 

 the berries for somj time longer. We have also 

 experience with the large green worm which 

 webs a number of berries together. Those in- 



closed are more destructive. I inclose a speci- 

 men of mildewed Industry. — W. ElJ.lsON 

 Taylor, Beaver ton, Ont. 



Thi-: specimens sent us by Mr. 

 Taylor contain the larva of the goose- 

 berry fruit-worm. It is of a reddish- 

 yellow tint, its bod\- tapers a little 

 toward each extremity and its head 

 is small, brown and horn)- looking as 

 described in Prof. Saunders' work on 

 Injurious Insects, and one of its dis- 

 tinguishing characters is hanging 

 down by a thread when disturbed. 

 When full grown this worm trans- 

 forms into a small brown crysalis, 

 which lies hidden among the rid)l)ish 

 on the ground imtil about the end 

 of April, when the moth comes forth 

 and is prepared to deposit its eggs 

 upon the young gooseberries as soon 

 as they are formed. 



The gathering of all the affected 

 berries and destroying the larva they 

 contain is about the only plan that 

 has been advised. Dusting the 

 bushes with air-slaked lime in spring 

 time is also said to be usefid by de- 

 terring the moth from depositing its 

 egRs. 



OPEN LETTERS iss— 



Crops in Stormont. 



Sir, — The clerk of the weather has dealt so 

 dl with us we have to own up, to having 

 trusted too much to appearances, in our report 

 last month. We prcdic'ed a fair crop of 

 apples, and had blossom enough to feel sure 

 of it, but apples are a coiii[)lete failure with us, 

 and the few we have are as badly spotted as 

 ever. Surely a wholesome rebuke conies here 

 to our grumblers who last year had it thai 

 apples were so plentiful they were not worth 

 growing. They will miss their apple sauce 

 this vear, and we can hardly pity them. 

 Strawberries were a failure with us. Last year 

 we picked i,cxx) baskets off quarter of an 

 acre ; this year it took one and thiee-(|uarter 

 acres to make up the same am juut. The few 

 raspberries, currants and gooseberries we had, 

 the birds devoured. We begin to see the pith 



of friend Dempsey's advice to us on this point 

 —grow enough for the birds too — but their 

 appetites are enormous, they open a market 

 for us greater than our limited space can supply. 

 They hay crop here is heavy, but to make hay 

 when the sun shines may be good advice if 

 you have the sunshine ; this season we have to 

 take it by starts, between shower-, which fail 

 us never. Constant rains have done us much 

 "laniage. 



Wdl you or any of your readers kindly tell 

 us how to kill Poison Ivy. We have it grow- 

 ing around the roots of trees where plowmgis 

 unpracticable. — Joh.n Croii,, Aultsville, /uly, 

 rSSg. 



A New Strawberry. 



Sir, — -This berry originated in the garden of 

 .S.D. Birchard.in Townshipof Scott, about forty 



