TBEE BORERS. 271 



it appears that the use of the chemical fertilizers avoids the damage, 

 while of all the common manures, cow manure encourages the pest 

 the most. "While there is such an easy remedy for the potato crop, 

 which is the most injured by it, it is quite unnecessary to suggest any 

 other. 



BORERS. 



A great variety of insects flies, moths and beetles chiefly in their 

 larva condition, subsist upon the wood, bark or pith of trees, shrubs 

 and herbaceous plants. The apple, quince, peach, plum, cherry, cur- 

 rant, raspberry, blackberry, squash and dahlia are the most infested 

 with these pests. The remedies for the tree borers are to dress the 

 lower part of the stem with some repellent preparation, as a mixture 

 of cow dung, clay and strong smelling superphosphate of lime, made 

 into a thin paste and plastered on the bark near the ground, beginning 

 in June and continuing until late in the summer. Either the parent 

 insects avoid the trees so protected, or the young larvae cannot or 

 will not penetrate the coating, and so perish. Another remedy is 

 to dig out the grubs that have made an entrance with knife and small 

 chisel, or to follow them up with a flexible wire in their burrows and 

 kill them. The smaller shrubs are saved by pruning off the branches 

 into which the borers have penetrated, while soft stemmed plants 

 may be split, as described under the head of Squash Borers, and the 

 grubs taken out and destroyed. 



LEAF SLUGS. 



Pears, plums and quinces are much troubled by a small, dark, soft 

 bodied slug, which devours the soft substance of the leaves and 

 reduces them to a skeleton. This checks the growth of the tree by 

 destroying its breathing organs. There is a very simple remedy, viz., 

 to dust the leaves with fine, dry, air-slaked lime, which at once 

 destroys, by its strong alkaline and acrid property, these moist, soft 

 creatures. 



THE APPLE WORM. 



The greatest pest of the apple tree is the Codling Moth or Apple 

 "Worm. This is a grayish moth, which lays its eggs upon the blossom 

 end of the fruit when it is set, and later, up to the time when it is 

 half grown. The larva eats its way into the heart of the apple, around 

 and into the core, when the fruit falls, and the insect leaves it, and 



