THE CURRANT. 153 



plenty on the morrow. Vigilance, however, will 

 soon so check the evil that your currants are safe ; 

 and if every one would fight the pests, they would 

 eventually be almost exterminated. The trouble 

 is that, while you do your duty, your next-door 

 neighbor may grow nothing on his bushes but 

 currant-worms. Thus the evil is continued, and 

 even increased, in spite of all that you can do; 

 but by a little vigilance and the use of hellebore 

 you can always save your currants. I have kept 

 my bushes green, luxuriant, and loaded with fruit 

 when, at a short distance, the patches of careless 

 neighbors were rendered utterly worthless. Our 

 laws but half protect the birds, the best insecti- 

 cides, and there is no law to prevent a man from 

 allowing his acres to be the breeding-place of 

 every pest prevailing. 



There are three species of the currant-borer, 

 and their presence is indicated by yellow foliage 

 and shrivelling fruit. The only remedy is to cut 

 out and burn the affected stems. These pests are 

 not often sufficiently numerous to do much harm. 



I earnestly urge that virulent poisons like Paris 

 green, London purple, etc., never be used on fruit 

 or edible vegetables. There cannot be safety in 

 this course. I never heard of any one that was 

 injured by white hellebore, used as I have directed; 

 and I have found that if the worms were kept off 



