THE CURCUUO. 63 



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the experiment often, but with no perceptible effect. It might here be asked, does 

 any one know that a Curculio is conscious of a smell from a manure heap ? 



C. E. G., of Utica, writes to the Cultivator, March, 1850 : " Having read, some- 

 where, that fresh stable manure put round fruit trees in flower would repel the 

 Curculio, I put some round my Plum trees. As I had to take the manure when it 

 was offered for sale, I was obliged to apply it a little earlier than I desired. Soon 

 after a heavy rain fell, washing, of course, the soluble portion of the manure down 

 upon the roots of the trees. Quite a number of valuable bearing trees died outright, 

 and a number more were seriously injured. This was dear-bought experience." He 

 says further, " I doubt the feasibility of this plan of repelling the Curculio. If the 

 weather be dry or windy it can do very little good unless the quantity be large, and 

 then you endanger your tree." 



In the Horticulturist, Vol. x., p. 1 89, a friend of the editor proposes to flood the 

 Peach Orchard once or twice a day, and drown the scamps ; and the editor wants 

 him to try it. In the same Vol., p. 357, Henry Croft, Vice-President of the Toronto 

 Horticultural Society, C. W., recommends the use of the sulphuretted waters, such 

 as that of Avon. These might be called the Hydropathic remedies. 



In the same, p. 479, John Brush, of Brooklyn, N. Y., proposes branches of 

 Tansy to be placed in the crotches of the trees. He had found it successful. But 

 the Editor says in reply that all he had been able to save was by the use of Milliner.. 

 As to the latter, my neighbor, Mr. Pierson, has tried 100 yards of it at one time, 

 enveloping the entire tree ; but the Curculios would find their way in. 



In the same, p. 431, Mr. J. R. Gardner, of Sunny Side, Montgomery Co., Va., 

 piles small stones round his trees it is successful. He does it because he has seen 

 trees growing among stones in Pennsylvania. 



In the Ohio Cultivator, 1850, vol. vi., p. 189, Z. Hampton, of Pennsville, Mor- 

 gan Co., O., says : " Caleb Hall, a respectable citizen of Muskingum Co., thinks 

 he has found a preventive for the ravages of the Curculio. Those wishing to save 

 their plums, I think, will do well to try, and now is the time. His method is to 

 melt brimstone, into which dip woollen rags cut into slips, say three or four inches 

 wide and five or six inches long, stick them one at a time on the end of a pole of 

 sufficient length, split a little at one end to receive them, set on fire about dark, and 

 hold them burning under and among the bearing branches a few minutes, two or 



