50 



Now, it has been found upon cutting down trees that have been 

 pkigged with sulphur that the material remains unchanged for many 

 years, and from the very nature of these conditions it is absurd to 

 supppose any good result can come from this practice. We have in the 

 Botanic Museum a specimen of a tree cut down and split open, in 

 which is found a mass of sulphur wholly unchanged. It had been in- 

 serted in an inch augur hole twenty-five years before the tree was cut 

 down. See Hovey's Magazine of Hort. No. CCLXXX., P. 1H2. 



It is hoped that at the close of the coming season some of the trees 

 thus treated by the city of Boston may be cut down and examined, and 

 the results made public, for, while we spend so much time in trying to 

 prevent injury to our trees from borers, we certainly ought not to make 

 holes in them many times larger than those of any known species ot 

 insect borers. 



While we would discourage anything that may be of such serious 

 injury to the tree as the above, the suggestion comes to us that sul- 

 phur in a soluble form may be introduced into a tree in sufficient quan- 

 tity to affect fungus growths which cause the rusts, blights, mildews, etc. 



In order to test this matter, a lot of rose bushes of large size, which 

 were badly mildewed, were selected and the following solutions inserted 

 by boring a hole with a small gimlet and forcing the liquid into the 

 opening with a medicine dropping tube. 



1 . Potassium Sulphide, Saturated solution. 



2. Hydrogen " " 



3. Ammonium " " " 



After forcing in all the liquid the plant wouUl take (about a tubeful) 

 the holes were plugged with hard grafting wax. 



Observations were made from time to time with the following results : 

 At tirst a slight improvement was noticed in the amount of mildew upon 

 the foliage, but as the season advanced, the effect of the holes made in 

 the trunk became more apparent, so that Sept. 2 2d, all the bushes were 

 dead except one of those treated with ammonium sulphide. 



This experiment was made in part to demonstrate the great injury 

 that must result in making large incisions in the trunks of trees or 

 shrubs, and that while there is some promise that the introduction of 

 antiseptics into the circulation of the sap may prevent the growth of 

 injurious fungi like the blights, mildews, etc., we must find other means 

 of introducing the solutions. 



From the very nature of the case presented, it seems hardly possible 

 to introduce any substance into the circulation of a plant in sufficient 

 quantities to affect insect life, and no experiments were undertaken in 

 this hne. 



