18 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS, 



While on this subject, I would urge the importance of a 

 spring dressing of ashes. If cultivators were to prepare 

 turfs from tanners' bark, peat-earth, coal dust mixed with 

 clay, cow dung, &c., and get them dried in the summer 

 season, these, by being preserved through the winter, may 

 be burned around fruit orchards, while the trees are in blos- 

 som, and if the fires are properly managed, a smoke may be 

 kept up by heaping on damp litter every night ; this will 

 prove pernicious to such insects as may reside in the trees, 

 and the ashes being spread on the ground, will serve as a 

 means of destruction to others. An orchard thus managed 

 every year, will need no other manure. The smoking should 

 be effected first on one side of the plantation, and afterward 

 on the other, or heaps may be prepared in different parts of 

 the orchard, and fire applied according as the wind may 

 serve to carry the smoke where it is most necessary. I 

 know a gardener in the neighbourhood of New-York, who 

 saved his Plums and Nectarines by burning salt hay, after 

 its having been used as a covering for his Spinach; and I 

 have no hesitation in recommending it as an excellent reme- 

 dy for securing fruit trees from insects, especially if some 

 coarse tobacco could be procured to add to it. The damper 

 the materials are, in moderation, the more smoke they will 

 create ; and if a little tar, pitch, sulphur, or other pernicious 

 combustible be sprinked among them, it will be beneficial. 

 This subject appears to me of the utmost consequence to 

 the farmer, as well as to the community at large ; I, there- 

 fore, cannot forbear offering some farther observations. 



It must be acknowedged that, although this country con- 

 tains an abundance of wood, coal, and peat, as well as 

 almost every other description of fuel, yet the poor of our 

 large cities, in general, suffer greatly from cold ; and if all 

 the tales of wo could be sounded in the ears of a sympa- 

 thizing community during our severe winters, I am persuaded 

 they would arouse them to the consideration of a remedy. 

 It is an acknowledged fact that the poor of Europe are 



