NOXIOUS INSECTS. 53 



earth, or but a little beneath, and where the bark is tender. 

 This worm feeds on the alburnum, girdling the tree be- 

 neath the bark. Refuse tobacco has been applied around 

 the trunk of the tree with good effect. Another mode of 

 effecting the destruction of the worm is by very strong 

 brine, a small cavity being formed around the trunk at the 

 surface ; a pint of brine is poured in ; this entering the cavity 

 destroys the worm at once. Old beef brine is supposed 

 to be best. And it should be applied once in spring and 

 twice during summer. But the preventive of leached or 

 unleached ashes, as above recommended, is to be preferred. 

 Even a small conical mound of common soil, or of rubbish, 

 placed around the trunk in May, has been found an effec- 

 tual safeguard ; but this mound must be levelled annually 

 in October, that the bark of the tree may harden. 



SUBS. 3d. CURCULIO. The curculio, in those parts of 

 the country where it has gained a habitancy, is the most 

 destructive of all enemies to fruit. The curculio is a 

 winged insect or beetle^ which rises from its earthy bed, 

 and chrysalis state, about the time the young fruit is form- 

 ing in spring. They crawl up the trees, and, when suffi- 

 ciently numerous, they puncture, and deposit an egg in 

 every fruit, particularly those possessed of smooth skins, as 

 the apricot, nectarine, and plurn. They are stated to con- 

 tinue their work of destruction till autumn; the egg thus 

 deposited, soon hatches, and produces a worm, which preys 

 on the fruit, causing it, in most cases, to fall prematurely. 

 With those fruits which I have just named, the destruction 

 is usually almost total, in those parts of the country where 

 this insect abounds. Yet it is stated as a fact by Dr. Til- 

 ton, that of two trees frequently standing so near each 

 other as to touch, the fruit of one has been destroyed, and 

 the other has escaped ; so little and so reluctantly do these 

 insects incline to use their wings. After the fruit thus in- 

 jured has prematurely fallen, and gone to decay, the worms 

 descend into the earth, where they remain during the win- 

 ter, in their chrysalis state, till the warmth of spring again 

 calls them forth to renew their depredations The cherry, 

 though equally liable to their attacks, yet from the multi- 

 tude of fruits which they produce, and their early maturity, 

 usually escapes with but a partial destruction ; and the peach 

 escapes in a great measure, from the rough and woolly na- 



