122 PROTECTION AGAINST MICE. 



are doubtless the weather and the amount of the fungus the 

 preceding year. The enriching of the soil and cultivation 

 are not known to have any marked eifect in either accel- 

 erating or retarding its advent. The only practicable means yet 

 devised for preventing it is to spray the trees a number of times 

 while the fruit is growing with a solution of hyposulphite of 

 soda (1 Ib to 10 gals of water) or sulphide of potassium (5 oz to 

 10 gals of water), preferably the latter. Not enough trials have 

 yet been made with these fungicides, however, to make it possible 

 to give explicit directions for their use, or to state definitely the 

 results to be expected. [Dr J. C. Arthur, Purdue University, La 

 Fayette, Ind. 



PROTECTION AGAINST MICE AND RABBITS. 



As a protection of fruit trees from mice, some of our good 

 fruit tree growers find a perfect remedy by wrapping a piece of 

 stiff tarred paper 8 or 10 inches wide around the bottom of the 

 tree. Probably a wider strip would prevent the gnawing from 

 rabbits as well. [Royal Stone, Otsego county, Mich. 



Field mice will work very badly in orchards when there is a 

 great depth of snow. The snow should be trodden down about 

 the trees the first time it is damp enough to do so, especially 

 in runs where it drifts, as trees six or eight inches in diameter 

 at the collar are often completely girdled in such situations. 



To protect trees against mice, rabbits or sheep, paint the trunk 

 above their reach with a cold wash made by mixing one peck of 

 unslacked lime with 4 Ibs of sulphur slacked in 8 qts of boiling 

 water, and while still hot add half a gallon of crude carbolic 

 acid and the same of gas tar, stirring well and mixing thoroughly. 

 A flat brush is the best thing to put it on with. [Jacob Faith, 

 Montevallo, Mo. 



My plan for protecting trees from mice in winter has been to 

 tie up the trunks of our trees with laths or other strips of thin 

 wood. This has always proved entirely satisfactory, and is cheap; 

 for after the strips are once applied, they do not need to be re- 

 moved for many years, except little additions of new strips as 

 the trees grow, and the work is practically limited to tying a 

 fresh string around them every fall, [Dr Hoskins in Rural Ver- 

 monter. 



A writer in the Revue Horticole gives the following remedy 

 for preventing the depredations of rabbits in his garden: He 

 mixes 3 Ibs of blue vitriol with 4 Ibs of fresh slaked lime and 

 adds the mixture to 18 gallons of water. The blue vitriol is first 

 dissolved in two or chree gallons of water, and then both are 

 thrown into a barrel and the water added to make 18 gallons. 

 The mixture is applied with a whitewash brush, in dry weather 

 only, to the trunks of the trees from the ground to a hight of a 

 foot or two. 



