2 8o THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



of true acid. One drop of the concentrated acid, or the inhalation of the smallest amount 

 of the vapour of the same acid, causes instant death. These data are given because of 

 the extreme danger to life of the aqueous solution for destructive purposes. Only 

 professional men can use it safely. A teaspoonful of powdered cyanide of potassium 

 placed in the entrance to a wasps' nest in the daytime causes its destruction. It is 

 extremely poisonous. 



Some persons prefer digging out wasps' nests. The grubs are capital bait for fish, 

 and fowls greedily eat them. Squibs are formed of two parts gunpowder and one part 

 sulphur, mixed and damped so as to fuse slowly but surely by combustion. Light 

 the squib, place it well into the wasps' burrow, covering with a piece of turf 2 or 3 

 inches thick and about a foot square, pressing it well down to keep in the smoke for a 

 few seconds. When the squib is expended, proceed to dig out the nest, and destroy its 

 occupants before they have time to recover. To catch rovers, insert a clean wine-bottle 

 half filled with water in the place of the nest, so that the top of the neck may be level 

 with the surface of the ground, and as near as possible in the same place as the entrance 

 to the nest was. The bottle must remain three or four days, and will catch every wasp 

 belonging to the nest which may have been away from home at the time the nest was 

 destroyed. The bottle must not be scented, and it may catch 1,700 to 2,000 wasps. 



Tree wasp nests, hornets included, are more difficult to take. A sulphur pot or an 

 empty tin (such as a coffee or cocoa canister) mounted on a stick, and charged with stout 

 strips of paper dipped in melted stone brimstone, lighted and applied to the orifice of the 

 nest, and held there closely, stifles all within it. The nest can be safely removed ; or a 

 bold person with a cloth will remove the nest and immerse it in a pail of water in a few 

 minutes. Another plan, and very effectual, is to go dressed in bee-manipulating attire 

 with petroleum in a watering-pot, and a syringe. "With a light placed so as to show 

 the nest, eject a syringeful of petroleum direct into the nest; there is no further 

 trouble, for it kills eggs, larvse, everything. 



Traps in the shape of clear glass bottles, with rather wide necks, half filled with a 

 mixture of beer and sugar, are useful, wasps, hornets, bluebottle flies, &c., entering 

 them eagerly and rarely coming out again. They should be emptied every morning, 

 using a colander to drain off the insects, which should be at once deeply buried ; they 

 smell offensively. Soda-water bottles are handy for suspending ; but all traps should 

 be used in advance of the fruit ripening, for once the insects taste ripe fruit they are so 

 fascinated as to forget anything else. Birds often begin the mischief by pecking the 



