INSECT RAVAGES. 169 



vent insects from passing. Binding loclis of cotton wool around the 

 trunks, «S:;c. 



Washing the trunks and large branches with soft soap, or strong soap 

 sudt*, or lye, or whitewashing with lime. 



A wash, composed of one pound of flowers of sulphur and a peck of 

 quicklime, mixed in a close vessel with a sufficient quantity of hot wa- 

 ter to make it of the consistence of common whitewash, has been used 

 with advantage as a remedy against insects and mildew in forest and 

 fruit trees. It should be applied when freshly made, in April, using a 

 whitewash brush. 



Dusting the leaves of trees with lime, or with powdered hellebore, 

 when the dew was on, has been mentioned as a remedy against leaf- 

 eating insects. 



Another mode of protecting trees from insects that crawl up the bark, 

 consists in fastening a rope around the tree and nailing a strip of tin four 

 inches wide around the rope so as to project above and below. The 

 females of the insect whose larva is the caukerworm {Anisopteryx ver- 

 nata) will lay her eggs under the rope, where they may be killed by ap- 

 plying kerosene. 



Digging around the tree to kill or expose the larvae to frost has been 

 tried with success. Others scatter corn around the roots, and allow 

 hogs to root among it, thus turning up the soil, and doubtless destroy- 

 ing many of the pnpai. Late plowing, by exposure to frosts and to birds, 

 will assist in destroying insects on their nests. 



Eland-picking, the seeking of cocoons and nests of insects, especially 

 in winter. Sweeping or burning down the nests of insects and seeking 

 and destroying them in their burrows have been practiced with success. 



The vapor of benzine has been proposed as a remedy against insects 

 infesting wood work. The injection of mineral salts and of creosote, 

 &c., is a preventive against insect damages to timber. The sap-wood 

 of white hickory, so liable to injury from boring insects, even after 

 worked into spokes or made into carriages, is sometimes protected by 

 these chemical processes. 



The apple-leaf crumpler sometimes contains the eggs of parasitic in- 

 sects which would hateh, and by multiplying diminish the injuries done 

 by this insect. It is therefore recommended to gather the affected 

 leaves, and instead of burning them throw them on the ground in a bare 

 l)lace. The parasitic insects would hatch and be saved, while such of 

 the noxious kind as hatched would perish before reaching a feeding 

 place. 



But many of the methods above enumerated are applieable only in a 

 small way to trees in nurseries or favorite shade trees, and in forest cul- 

 ture we must seek relief from other sources, or, as sometimes happens, 

 stand helpless and witness the great injuries done without hope of 

 relief.^ 



Immense damages are also committed in tields and gardens upon 

 grains and fruits, and here, as in the forest, there is often evidence 



'In speakiug ox" insects, we must distinguish between friends and foes, and not; re- 

 gard our allies as enemies, however di'^agreeable they at times become. The ant is 

 treated by the German forester as his friend, knowing as he does the services which 

 these little insects render. Besides iurnisbing in its eggs a dainty food to many kinds 

 of song-birds, it pursues the larvaj of leaf-eating insects with great avidity, mounting 

 to the highest branches in pursuit of its prey, and destroying these destructive para- 

 sites of trees in great abundance. 



A nest of ants introduced in the midst of a plantation of cabbages has been known 

 to protect the plants from the worms that were destroying it. — {Bevue des Eaux et 

 Foreta, xiii, 303.) 



