318 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the caustic soda wast — an application accidentally discovered by a New 

 Jersey gardener, a few years ago, to be the best thing ever applied to kill 

 issects and make smooth bark. 



William Lawton. — Nothing but a sharp knife to cut out the worm, after 

 well seated, will cure that difficulty. 



Prof. Mapes. — This remedy is something like the Frenchman's flea pow- 

 der — " catch the flea and force it down his throat." The only easy remedy 

 is boiling water. Put a cloth around the tree and pour boiling hot water 

 on, and the steam will kill the worms. I find no difficulty in killing peach 

 worms in my trees with hot water. It would not hurt the tree to apply a 

 jet of steam direct to the worm-affected part, but it will hurt the worm. It 

 would be impossible to pick out the worms in an orchard, such as some in 

 Jersey, of 80,000 trees. The best cure for the yellows is to give the trees 

 as vigorous a growth as possible, by the use of inorganic fertilizers. 



Solon Robinson. — Will Prof. Mapes please give the direction once more 

 for making the caustic soda wa^h ? I have had many applications for it 

 lately. 



Prof. Mapes. — Take common sal soda and put it in any old iron pot or 

 other vessel red hot, and then put it hot into water, one pound to one gal- 

 lon, and let it stand till cool, and use it with a brush or swab to the body 

 or limbs of the trees you wish to clean, and it kills all insects it comes in 

 contact with, and makes the bark assume a smooth, polished appearance. 

 It will not injure any growing plants. 



Solon llobinson. — Joel Parker, of Cambridge, Mass., wants to know 

 how much of the lime and salt mixture to apply to a strawberry bed, and 

 when ; and another person wants to know how much to apply to grass land. 



R. Gr. Pardee. — I used one bushel of lime and one peck of salt, prepared 

 as directed, to a piece 30 feet square, two weeks before setting out the 

 plants. 



Prof. Mapes — If a soil is very full of vegetable matter and tannic acid, 

 that quantity may answer. Upon grass land six to ten bushels may be 

 applied. But understand, lime and salt separate, or merely mixed, are 

 not the mixture that I mean. It is three bushels of lime slaked with water, 

 completely saturated, with one bushel of salt, and left in a pile until the 

 air produces an efiiorescence and a light chlorine and soda powder on the 

 outside, which, being swept off", is the article to apply to the land. Then 

 the air produces more on the outside, and it may be necessary to turn the 

 pile several times, and wait weeks for it all to change ; but that is the sub- 

 stance tliat produces such marked effect upon soils which are deficient, as 

 most old fields are, of chlorine and soda. 



R. L. Pell. — At the last meeting of the Farmers' Club, I stated that it 

 would be well fur agriculturists, invariably, to use liquid manures, if pos- 

 sible, instead of solid, for the reason that a plant could not imbibe 

 manure, through its capillaries, in any other than a liquid form. Several 

 remarks were made to which I desired to reply, but the hour for miscella- 

 neous business having expired, I was compelled to delay until this meeting. 



