428 APPENDIX. 



pletely protected against insects, by washing them in an infusion of 

 bitter aloes, which does not in the least injure the plants ; and the 

 effects of a single application are stated to be lasting. 



FLAME FIRES. Samuel Preston, of Stockport, Pa., has success- 

 fully destroyed insects in his garden and melon grounds, by Same 

 fires of shavings, at night; the giddy insects rush into the fire from 

 all quarters. He is satisfied that one shilling's worth of labor in an 

 evening will secure a garden from their depredations, if not in time 

 exterminate them. Fuel suitable may consist of the mowings of 

 brush pastures or road-sides. 



FLAMBEAUX. Dr. Harris recommends, as effectual, to wind round 

 the end of a stick, about a foot and a half long, old rags and swin- 

 gling tow, dipped in tar or melted brimstone ; let this be stuck in the 

 ground and set on fire ; it will burn a considerable time, and prove 

 the funeral pyre of myriads. Staves of tar barrels might probably 

 answer as well. 



- Certain trees and plants are peculiarly offensive to insects gen- 

 erally. Such are the Virginia Cedar, the Pennyroyal, and some 

 others ; and these being planted -very near, or in contact with, the 

 peach tree, and other plants which are obnoxious to their approach, 

 have proved, in certain cases, effectually repulsive from their pow- 

 erful odor. 



Several other species of plants there are, besides the Red cedar, 

 which, planted at the roots of the peach, and of other trees, which 

 are liable to the attacks of destructive insects, may also prove equally 

 repulsive from their powerful odor. Such are the tansy, and the 

 Artemasia or Southern wood, both of which are perennial, and of 

 the easiest culture ; the first being raised by division of roots, the 

 last by cuttings. 



Forests and rivers serve, in a certain degree, to insulate, or to ob- 

 struct the march of the canker worms, of the curculiones, &c. Thus 

 it is, also, that in many places which are partially surrounded by the 

 sea. the destructive insects are not known. 



Lastly, birds, of many kinds, are the natural foes of insects, from 

 the multitudes which they devour as their principal food. Such 

 are the crows or rooks, the blackbird, the robin, &c. ; and wherever 

 bounties have been mercilessly offered for their destruction, the in- 

 sect tribes have multiplied beyond all bounds, and gained the pre- 

 ponderancy, and those countries have, in consequence, and invaria- 

 bly, been visited with a curse. It has been computed that every 

 crow or rook will consume a pound of worms and other insects in 

 each week, during the whole season a vast number, which, other- 

 wise, would have become the parents of millions. The black- 

 bird and the robin, together with their young, devour also a propor- 

 tionate number. Incredible numbers of the butterflies or moths, the 

 parents of the unnumbered millions of the caterpillars and canker 

 worms, are destroyed also by the martin, and others of their tribe, 

 which seize their prey on the wing. 



In 1841, a premium was granted by the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society to Mr. David Haggerston, for his discovery of an 

 effectual remedy for the destruction of the rose-bug, and most other 

 pernicious insects, which sometimes infest shrubs, and plants, and 

 trees of the smaller size. The compound is composed of two pounds 

 of train-oil soap, dissolved in fifteen gallons of water ; the compo- 

 sition to be showered upon the trees or plants with a Willis syringe. 



