24 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



was also a parasite that lays its eggs on the white grub thereby 

 destroying great numbers of them. 



Questions were asked concerning the value of lime and nitrate 

 of soda in cultivated ground. 



The Lecturer replied that lime is not a fertilizer but is often useful 

 on soil that has become sour through an excessive use of barnyard 

 manure. It eliminates the impurities and rejuvenates the land. 

 Thirty to forty bushels to an acre should be used and harrowed in 

 in the early spring. 



Nitrate of soda is a food for growing plants only. It is expensive 

 and wasteful to apply it to the ground before you have plant life. 

 Use a tablespoonful of nitrate of soda to a gallon of water while 

 the plant is growing. 



In answer to a question as to the best fertilizer for a light, sandy 

 soil with gravel underneath the Lecturer recommended sowing 

 with clover, cow peas, or vetch, which when plowed in added humus 

 to the ground. 



In regard to the planting of sweet peas he advised planting either 

 at the beginning of winter or the opening of spring. Plant in a 

 trench four inches below the surface. When the peas come up 

 after the freezing of the ground they will have more wood and 

 larger blooms; but do not plant them in the same spot each year. 

 In California they can grow a crop year after year, but not here. 

 They convert the soil a little each year and plant again. Sweet 

 peas have to be hybridized by hand and in Europe and America 

 new varieties are being introduced constantly by hand hybridi- 

 zation. 



The question was asked how to rid the squash of the borer. 

 The best way was to get borer proof vines which he said could 

 be obtained, otherwise use tobacco dust, pyrethrum powder, etc. 

 The little borer which destroys the squash vine has its breathing 

 apparatus under its wings and on the hottest days in summer they 

 breathe the fastest, so if you freely sprinkle the vines with these 

 powders you will rid the plants of a great many. 



A lady inquired the cause of a clematis vine suddenly wilting 

 and dying down to the ground, almost in a single day. 



The Lecturer replied that this was sometimes caused by the sun 

 shining directly upon the lower part of the plant and upon the 



