1887.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 93 



To Farmers and Gardeners. 



Gentlemen : — Permit me to call your attention to the remedy for the 

 Potato Bug scourge, called " The Potato Protector." 



It is non-poisonous, cheap, easy of application, and effective. It is 

 composed mostly of vegetable substances, which are warranted not to 

 poison man or beast. For twenty-five cents you can buy enough of it to 

 treat one bushel of seed, and it is warranted to be a cheaper protector for 

 the amount of land this seed will plant than a single application of Paris 

 Green would be, and ordinarily a second and third application of the poison 

 has to be made to protect the plants. But the method of niiplying the Pro- 

 tector is its strong point. The strength of one package of the Protector is 

 transferred to five gallons of water, according to directions on each package ; 

 in this solution one bushel of seed potatoes, cut and ready to plant, is soaked 

 for one-half hour. The plants from seed thus treated will be so distasteful 

 to the bugs, both young and old, that they will not molest them, and the 

 flavor of the Protector, so distasteful to the bugs, is warranted not to be 

 perceptible i7i the potatoes. Thus by a single treatment, that may be done 

 at the rate of a bushel an hour, without expensive help, the same results 

 are secured at one-tenth the labor of applying Paris Green. 



One season''s trial will convince you that the Protector will keep the bugs 

 off. The inventor, Mr. John Butterworth, after six years' experimenting, 

 hit upon the Protector in 1884. That season it alone, of many others, stood 

 the test, and in 1885 its value was confirmed by treating alternate hills, 

 when the hills not treated were destroyed, and slugs and winged bugs 

 placed on the treated hills would not feed or I'emain there. 



John Butterworth & Co., 



Mansfield. Mass. 



Our experiment does not confirm the claim of the manufac- 

 turer, for potato bugs were as plenty on the vines of the 

 potatoes treated in the above-described manner by a solution 

 of "the Potato Protector" as on any other of our different 

 experimental potato plats. Aside from this fact, it is but an 

 act of justice to the manufacturer to state that he invited by 

 letter an actual investigation on our part into his claim. 



We should not, however, advise the preparation of a mixture 

 of hypochlorite of lime, or bleaching lime, with herbaceous mat- 

 ter, if we did intend to turn the peculiarity of the former to 

 account, for in that case it soon suffers serious alterations in 

 its composition. 



