276 APPLE TREES. 
with it, calculating that the bitterness of the decoc- 
tion would render the favourite food of the insects 
unpalatable to them. But I was deceived: the bugs 
continued their depredations as though no pains © 
had been taken to dislodge them. 
The application of spirit of turpentine killed 
them at once, and for a few days after it had been 
applied I was in hopes that their extermination had 
been effected; but others soon appeared. 
Despairing of success, I was on the point of quit- 
ting the field, and leaving the bugs in undisturbed 
possession of it; when I began to conjecture that I 
had not gone the right way to work. I reflected, 
that none of my applications could have penetrated 
sufficiently deep into the curved and knotty sinu- 
osities of the diseased parts; and that, on this 
account, there would be a sufficient force of the 
enemy left alive to recommence its depredations at 
the first favourable opportunity. Wherefore I con- 
cluded, that nothing short of the entire destruction 
of the eggs, the young, and the adult, could save 
the trees from ultimate ruin. Knowing that the 
bug could not exist if totally deprived of air, I 
resolved to bury it alive; and this I effected by an 
application at once the most easy and simple that 
can be imagined. It costs nothing. 
I mixed clay with water, till it was of a consist- 
ency that it could be put on to the injured parts 
of the tree, either with a mason’s trowel, or with a 
painter’s brush. I then applied it to the diseased 
places of the tree, and it soon smothered every bug. 
A second coat upon the first filled up every crack 
