64 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



three evenings each week, for three or four weeks, by which he has saved his plums, 

 so as to sell over sixty dollars' worth a year." I fear Friend Hall is one who is in 

 the practice of killing his bees by fumigating with burning brimstone, and believes 

 the Curculio can be killed in the same way. So it can. If he will make a box 

 large enough to cover each tree, and as tight as a bee-hive, and then fill it with the 

 fumes of his burning matches, until brimstone will no longer burn in it for want of 

 oxygen, the Curculios will probably be in very much the same condition that bees 

 are, after such a Satanic visitation ; but the effect would be very bad upon the trees. 

 There was some other cause besides an occasional smell of brimstone that kept the 

 Curculios from Friend Hall's Plums. 



The Cultivator of Sept., 1847, states, that " Some time ago a remedy was pro- 

 posed in the Ohio Cultivator, on the authority of Gen. J. T. Worthington, consisting 

 of tubs, whitewashed inside, and containing an inch of water, placed under the trees 

 in the night, with a lighted candle in each." The light attracts them, and it was 

 averred that " hundreds had been caught in this way, in one night, in a single tul" and 

 that it had been practised with much success by " one or more " fruit-growers of 

 Chillicothe. 



In a subsequent number of that paper, J. Dille, an intelligent nurseryman, 

 states that he has " tried this remedy without any success whatever ; that some of 

 these insects were under water half an hour, without any apparent inconvenience ; 

 and that they ascended the side of the tub as readily as a sailor would a rope." Not 

 many would have had the patience to try this experiment, as Mr. Dille did. We 

 thank him for thus promptly proving and recording its worthlessness. 



If there were a person connected with the Agricultural Department of the 

 Government whose duty it should be to test the merits of new things, it might often 

 do much good. I write a great deal by lamplight on summer evenings. I have 

 caught hundreds and hundreds of insects that have been attracted by my light, but 

 I never yet have caught a Curculio in that way. .1 have been in the habit, for 

 years, of carrying a small vial of Curculios in my pocket Sometimes I meet a 

 person who talks as if he knew all about the Curculio. At the proper time my 

 vial comes out for information, but the insects are seldom recognised. Even Agri- 

 cultural editors do not always know what they are. Very likely General Worthing- 

 ton's friend would be equally at a loss. 



