124 



THE CANADIAN HORTfCULTURlST. 



mentioned mixture in them, and a few 

 days after found some of the moths 

 caught. I let tiiem remain, and in an- 

 other week or so the water was full of 

 moths and some beetles of a black color 

 with wide ivory bands around them. I 

 sent a specimen to the agricultural 

 editor of the Globe, and found it was 

 one of the burying beetles. I had to 

 empty tlie jars more than once during 

 the fall and replace the mixture, and 

 destroyed some hundreds of moths. 

 Whether they were all Codlin Moths 1 

 cannot say. One of my neighbors, 

 who rather prides himself on his fruit- 

 growing, was here one day, and I took 

 him into my orchard and showed him 

 one of the jars with moths in it. He 

 took out his pocket-book and made a 

 note of the proportions of water, mo- 

 lasses and vinegar, and after all made 

 no use of them. I mentioned the mat- 

 ter to others, but could not get them 

 to follow my example. The plum 

 growers in the vicinity of Owen Sound 

 were entire strangers to the curculio 

 until last year, when that pest made 

 its a})pearance in one or two orchards 

 at the upper end of this township. I 

 fear it will sj)read all over this part of 

 the country in a few years more, and if 

 it can only be kept in check by frequent 

 jarring of the trees, I think I shall let 

 the plums go — the few I have at least. 

 I have a Mountain Ash growing near 

 my house which was formerly desj)oiled 

 of its berries before Christmas by the 

 birds, but strange to say no birds med- 

 dled with it last fall, although in the 

 winter it was visited by a small Hock 

 of the northern grosbeaks, that effectu- 

 ally cleared off its berries. I notice in 

 the columns of the Brant Review that 

 that pest, the English rabbit, is becom- 

 ing troublesome in the County of Brant. 

 Several had been shot or trapped in the 

 gardens around Paris recently. They 

 will hardly ever become such a nuisance 

 as they are in Australia and New 



Zealand. In a wild state in England 

 the female produces eight litters of from 

 four to eight, sometimes more, young 

 at a time. The period of gestation is 

 thirty days, and the female is in he;it 

 on the third day afterwards. They aie 

 capable of procreation at three months' 

 old. It has been calculated that if 

 allowed to breed unmolested one year, 

 would increase in four years to con- 

 siderably over a million, the piecise 

 number I do not now recollect. In 

 England their increase is kept in check 

 by the weasels, sloats, foumarts, foxes, 

 hawks and owls. I hope a combined 

 effort will be made by the farmers, 

 wherever they appear, to destroy them 

 root and branch. They are said to be 

 spreading over Australia at the rate of 

 one hundred miles a year. At this 

 rate how long will they be in extending 

 from Paris, County Brant, to St. Catha- 

 I'ines 1 Our long and severe winters 

 may help to keep them in check in some 

 degree, as they cannot well burrow in 

 winter, and every burrow made in the 

 summer would have a chance to be 

 stopped up by the snow in the winter. 

 They cannot so well burrow in heavy 

 clay soils, but in sandy and loamy soils 

 they can soon honeycomb a field unless 

 they are destroyed. 



Charles Julyan. 

 Presqu' Isle, Sarawak, Co. Grey. 



SMALL FRUITS IN OROXO. 

 Mr. Editor, — Having been a reader 

 of your valuable monthly for many 

 years past, I think it no more than j'ust 

 that I should say something as to its 

 merits. My father was a subscriber to 

 it, I believe, from its very beginning, 

 and after his decease I found it to my 

 benefit to still continue it ; and I would 

 say farther, that the monthly, with its 

 yearly premiums, I would not be with- 

 out for any other published, and this 



