!02 THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



a house containing plants in a growing state, as the gas emitted will burn up every 

 leaf just as completely as if fire had been used. I have, however, never found trees 

 injured from being painted with this mixture ; it is only the sulphurous gas that is 

 dangerous, and that probably would not injure plants in a dormant state." In using 

 the foregoing mixture, care must be taken that whilst smearing the buds they are not 

 injured or dislocated. It may be dashed amongst bushes with a whitewash brush, or 

 made thin enough to be passed through a syringe. Birds will not touch buds that 

 are well coated with the mixture. 



The following wash is effectual for the same purpose ; it also destroys lichen and 

 moss: Quicklime 5 pounds, choosing the lightest lumps; flowers of sulphur 10 

 pounds; water 10 gallons. Boil these half an hour, kept stirred ; then slake 7J pounds 

 of quicklime and dissolve 7^ pounds of common salt in boiling water, adding thereto 

 the lime and sulphur mixture, and enough water to make 30 gallons. Strain the 

 whole through a hair sieve, and spray over the trees when dry. The wash is the most 

 efficacious as an insecticide and fungicide when applied at a temperature of 120? to 

 140, but it must only be used when the fruit trees are dormant. 



Still another mixture may be named for syringing over fruit trees to prevent 

 birds taking the buds. " Boil a pound of quassia chips in four gallons of soft water 

 twenty minutes, and dissolve in it, as it cools, a pound of soft soap, adding a wine- 

 glassful of petroleum or kerosene. Strain, and spray or syringe over the trees 

 when dry ; but, being liable to be washed off by rain, it is necessary to repeat the 

 application. This mixture destroys various kinds of insects and caterpillars. 



Fruit Cages. Leaving gooseberry and other bushes unpruned until spring as a 

 means of saving some buds from the birds is a common practice, but rarely satisfactory, 

 because the birds take the most promising buds. There is but one safe means of 

 securing the finest crops of fruit, namely, to preserve the buds from the depredators. 

 This can be done and birds preserved at the same time, by covering fruit quarters 

 with 1-inch wire netting. For supporting the netting l^-inch iron pipes should 

 be set perpendicularly 4 to 6 feet apart, letting them into the ground 2 feet, and 

 if 10 feet out of the ground, strawberries, fruit bushes, raspberries, pyramid pears 

 and cherries, also dwarf apple and plum trees, will be accommodated. Upright tubes 

 should be fixed at intervals about 9 feet apart or half the distance of those at the 

 ends and sides; and to keep the netting from "sagging" J-inch tubing should be run 

 along the top of the pillars, and these should have a socket where they cross each 



