28G 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



THE FRUIT TREE BORER. 



We recently called on a friend who is famous for the 

 success of his apple crop. He is no believer in the gen- 

 erally received opinions about "changes of climate" since 

 the days of our forefathers, " wearing out of the soil," 

 " degeneracy of varieties," and the theories that are sat- 

 isfactory to most people for their ill success; and we 

 asked him for his •' recipe " that we might add it to the 

 number already on file. 



" My plan," said he, " is simply to keep away the bor- 

 er." "The borer," he continued, "weakens the trees, 

 and once weakened, the fruit drops before it is mature, or 

 it can not recover from the slightest injury that any in- 

 sect inflicts on it; moreover, the tree becomes sickly, and 

 and then insects prey on it; for they do not like healthy 

 trees. Insects have an office in nature to perform, which 

 is to hasten to decay what nature has intended to remove 

 from living families— just as worms soon take away the 

 life of a sickly pig." 



" Easy enough talking," observed a friend with us, 

 " but how do you keep away the borer ? Tobaco stems ?" 

 "No." "Lime?" "No." "Ashes?" "No, none of 

 these." "Pray, what then?" "Now you give it up, I 

 will tell you. I merely keep the soil scraped away from 

 the trunk down to the bare roots all the year round — sum- 

 mer and winter." 



My companion laughed increduously if not contemptu- 

 ously ; " and,' said he, " friend C. I have given you credit 

 for better understanding than to suppose any amount of 

 freezing or roasting will kill a borer once domiciled with- 

 in the trunk of the tree." "I do not suppose it will," he 

 replied, "I have no such object. If I can ever find one 

 in, I trust to my jack-knife or wire for his destruction, and 

 not to heat or frost." This was a poser. 



" What then is your object ?" was the next inquiry. 

 *' It is to keep the borer out. Did you ever see the borer 

 enter the stem of the tree, at any height above the ground ? 

 No. And why ? It requires soft moist bark for the pur- 

 pose; and whenever you remove the soil, and render the 

 bark hard and firm to the collar, the borer instinctively 

 goes to other and more favorable places for the secure 

 raising of its young." 



"But will they not go into the main leading roots?" 

 " I have found them to avoid these roots as if it were un- 

 fit to rear their young; in fact, I have never known them 

 attack mine." 



Nor had they; that was evident. A clean, healthful 

 orchard — never cropped, annually top-dressed, grass kept 

 away several feet from the stem, so that no insect could 

 find a cool and moist harbor for its larva?, and every suc- 

 cess following. Certainly the borers did not attack these 

 trees ; and the novel reasoning struck us as so philosoph- 

 ical, that vve have thought it worth recording in our pa- 

 ges, for further observation and — for we want to be re- 

 paid for the suggestion — report in these pages. — Garden- 

 er's Monthly. 



■ i ■ 



WHALE OIL SOAP FOR THE ROSE SLUG. 



with a square end, stir and " mash " the soap till it is all 

 dissolved. Let it stand for a few hours, and strain 

 through a piece of coarse sacking into a tub, which till 

 with water. As you use it, dilute still more, to as many 

 as eight pails of water. Apply it at night, in fair weather 

 to the plants by means of a good garden syringe, with a 

 fine rose. And here let me say, the work must be thor- 

 ough. Commit it to no hired help ; if you do it may be 

 slighted. But grasp the syringe yourself, and make a fu- 

 rious attack on the plants. Charge upon them at every 

 point ; go round and round, aud round again each bush, 

 and drive, with all the force you can command, the fluid 

 into every part, and under every leaf. Get down upon 

 the ground and force it up, wetting the underside of the 

 leaves, where the insects at this time of the day most 

 abound. After feeling sure you have thoroughly drenched 

 the entire plans, you will find, by turning up the under 

 side of the leaves, they have not all been wet. But 

 charge into them again, and draw them through the wet 

 hand; for, if you have been faithful, your hands and 

 clothes will have become pretty well wet. But no matter 

 for that; you are engaged in a just war, and you must not 

 count the cost. And if your good wife should turn up 

 her nose at the offensive odor which for a while attaches 

 to you, she will excuse it when she comes to look upon 

 the clean, glossy, healthy foliage of her rose bushes, res- 

 cued from ruin by so efficacious an agent. I have found 

 one application sufficient. But should they show them- 

 selves again "in force," you must repeat the application. 

 I5ut be assured that every one you thoroughly wet will 

 commit no more ravages. 



Some years ago, the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci- 

 ety offered a prize for a remedy for the slug which feeds 

 on the leaves of the rose. The prize was awarded to 

 David Haggerston. The remedy consisted of syringing 

 the bushes with a solution of 2 lbs. of whale oil soap in 

 15 gallons of water. This remedy has been extensively 

 used, and is undoubtedly effectual. A correspondent of 

 the last Gardener's Monthly says he has used it for eight 

 or nine years, and it has not only preserved his rose 

 bushes from the ravages of the slug, but has greatly less- 

 ened their numbers from year to year, so that now the 

 labor of protecting the bushes from this insect is materi- 

 ally lessened, though his bushes are much larger. He 

 Bays : 



As late as may be in the season, before the opening of 

 the blooms, put into a bucket, say about 4 lbs. whale oil 

 soap (of late years I have not been particular to weigh or 

 measure, being governed by the color, taste and smell). 

 Upon this pour a kettle of boiling water. With a stick, 



GRAPE TRELLISES-TIGHTENING THE WIRES. 



Eds. Genesee Farmer : — I was thinking, after I got 

 home from my late visit to your office, that it might not 

 have been amiss for me to have mentioned, when con- 

 versing briefly about grape vines, the method I mean to 

 try to stretch the wires for my trellis. I have never seen 

 or heard of it, but it may be stale to you. I have pur- 

 chased some " saw rods," at five shillings per dozen, or 

 five cents apiece. The wire can be attached to each end 

 and then tightened up, and it strikes me that it will be 

 considerably stronger than a thread cut on the wire itself, 

 and is, besides, more convenient for tightening or loosen- 

 ing as the weather may demand. I have nothing but 

 theory to show in the matter now, but hope before long 

 to test it fully, and will communicate the result. 



Lyon»,N. Y. EUKIOOLIST. 



m i * 



Strawberry Winb. — Charles D. Bragdon, of the Ru- 

 ral New Yorker, states that E. Sims, of Broome county, 

 Indiana, informs him that he has had great success in 

 making wine from strawberries. He states that he "real- 

 ized full six hundred dollars net profits from not over half 

 an acre of land in strawberries." He states that he has 

 sold the wine readily at $2.50 per gallon. He has forty 

 acres in strawberries in Illinois — eighteen of which are 

 in the southern part of the State, for an early market — 

 and intends to make from seventy-five to a hundred bar- 

 rels of wine the coming season. 



Peach Borers. — A correspondent of the Gardener'i 

 Monthly says a friend of his applied spirits of turpeutine 

 to his peach trees affected by the borer. The remedy was 

 " radical and thorough, the trees in two hours being so 

 dead that no borer could injure them." The same writei 

 has tried with success a strong solution of tobacco water, 

 applied on a dry day in June, and the tobacco leaves lefl 

 around the collar of the tree. In the autumn following! 

 only one worm was found in a dozen trees. 



