POTASH AS INSECTICIDE AND FUNGICIDE. ^6 



purpose — since they have used potash salts the corn has been practi- 

 cally exempt from injury by cut- worms or wire-worms. That kainit 

 will kill even true wire-worms (Elater Larvae). I have proved experi- 

 mentally." 



''Therefore, I advise the application of kainit as a top-dressing, 

 just as soon as the ground is ready to receive it, and as long as possible 

 before planting." 



. . . . ''During the season of 1890, I found in a fine peach orchard 

 several trees undoubtedly infested by root-lice. I directed the appli- 

 cation of kainit in a trench, and the new foliage was normal." 



"Root-lice are very much more common and infest a greater va- 

 riety of crops than is generally known, causing a sickly appearance in 

 the plants, for which there is no apparent explanation. One of the 

 prominent fruit and truck growers of South Jersey informed me re- 

 cently that he always used potash in the form of kainit, not because it 

 was always best for his crops, but because it was always the worst for 

 the insects. This gentleman is one of those that make farming pay." 



Foot Note: "Bulletin No. ;^;^ of the Cornell Station has come 

 into my hands since this bulletin was sent to the printer. In it Prof. 

 Comstock reports poor success in laboratory experiments with kainit 

 as against wire-worms. Space is lacking here to go into details, but 

 I will do so in the Annual Report. That laboratory experiments do 

 not always indicate what will happen in the field the following will 

 show: 



"On the Voorhees farm, in Somerset County, a fourteen-acre field 

 was divided into sections, to test kainit and muriate of potash as 

 fertilizers, and a strip of seven rows was left untreated between. The 

 land was known to be badly infested with wire-worms and cut-worms, 

 or grub- worms, more especially one low meadow. In the half treated 

 with kainit the corn came up well and was not molested by insect& at 

 all; on the muriate half the injury was much lessened, and in the 

 untreated rows, running the full length of the field, almost the. whole 

 was destroyed by insects. The experiment was not made to test 

 insecticide effect, but the results were so apparent that Mr. Voorhees 

 spoke of them at once, and reports that since using kainir ' '-as no 

 further trouble with either wire-worms or cut-worms. This lias also 

 been the efxperience of his neighbors, and of all who have been 

 questioned by me. I therefore again repeat my advice, use kainit 

 Wherever practicable." - • . > i4>i 



