96 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



expensive, more effectual. In the southern states, 1 

 perceive, some persons are still ignorant of the natu- 

 ral history of this insect, and regret that it has not 

 been examined and described by scientifick men. We 

 have nothing left to be desired on this head. The de- 

 scription of the canker worm, by professor Peck, is 

 very satisfactory, and only leaves us to regret that the 

 same ingenuity could not have devised some speedy, 

 simple mode of extirpating or checking them. Until 

 some effectual mode is discovered, I think we should 

 make constant experiments, and communicate fully 

 the results, in the hope that if our trials shall not prove 

 in every case successful, they may stimulate others to 

 more happy ones. 



"I had understood that Mr. Josiah Knapp, of Bos- 

 ton, was induced to try the effect of air-slacked lime. 

 He put it round one of his trees in the spring of 1 8 14, 

 and I have been assured, not only by him, but by 

 another respectable friend who examined it, that it 

 was fully successful. The tree was in a small garden 

 in Boston, surrounded with other trees, Tthich were 

 filled with the worms, and this one wholly escaped, 

 except that a few appeared to have attacked its ex- 

 tremities, where they were interlocked with the other 

 trees. 1 mentioned this fact to a Rhode-Island gen- 

 tleman, who informed me that, in that state, they had 

 used the rubbish collected from the breaking of flax, 

 and it had effectually prevented the rise of the insect. 

 I resolved to make the experiment of lime on an ex- 

 tensive scale. As the insects rise in the fall, 1 deter- 

 mined to put the lime on in autumn. For this pur- 

 pose I had the turf dug in around sixty apple trees, 

 and the earth laid smooth. I then took three hogs- 

 heads of effete or air-slacked lime, and strewed it an 

 inch thick round my trees, to the extent of about two 

 or three feet from the roots, so that the whole diame- 

 fer of the opening was from four to six feet, I tarred 



