190 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in the daily papers of this city, by boring holes in trees and in- 

 serting a mj'sterious compound. In his view, one might as well 

 try to put poison into a man's system with the idea of killing 

 mosquitoes when they bite him. 



John Fillebrown said that he knew a case where a man spoiled his 

 orchard by boring holes in the trees and filling them with sulphur. 



President Walcott said that it was much to be regretted that such 

 injury should have been inflicted on the trees in the public grounds 

 in this city by boring holes in them ; for even if the operation pro- 

 tects the trees from insects it inflicts a definite injury on the trees. 



Mr. Beard said that the inventor of this method states that he 

 has studied the subject for many years and is now on the point of 

 success. One often smiles to see the nonsense printed in the daily 

 papers in regard to horticulture, but this ought not to pass unnoticed, 

 for if it is promulgated and acted upon manj* trees will be injured. 



Mr. Bates thought we ought to be ver}* careful about condemning 

 any new experiment. The experiment with sulphur mentioned by 

 Mr. Fillebrown shows that sap will take it up. Can we not find 

 some substance that will destroy insects without injuring the trees? 



Mr. Bates spoke of the apple maggot which came into Kingston, 

 Mass., where he resides, about forty years ago, but did not cross 

 the river to Plymouth for some years. It begins now to affect 

 pears as well as well as apples. 



J. W. Manning said that this worm was first seen by him 

 in 1847 in Chelmsford. It is most troublesome in soft summer 

 apples. 



Colonel Henry Wilson said in regard to preventing insects by 

 putting substances into holes bored in trees, that it is one of the 

 schemes which come up periodically. The papers were full of it 

 thirty years ago and he went through with them, trying all sub- 

 stances from mercur\' to unguintum, and they produced no eflect 

 whatever. The pressure of the sap in all cellular structures is 

 outward, and such vegetable structures cannot absorb anything 

 inward. Sap is not a solvent of anything ; lime and water will 

 dissolve a certain portion of sulphur. The scheme furnished him 

 a good deal of innocent amusement ; Nature always tries to heal 

 wounds in trees and animals, and the wounds which he made were 

 healed and the substances in them remained unchanged. 



Mr. Beard concurred in Colonel "Wilson's views ; he regarded the 

 scheme under discussion as absurd and childish. The old methods 



