Currants and Gooseberries. 245 



" After digging about my bushes, and manuring in the spring, I cover the earth 

 around the bushes with tobacco stems, and place a handful in the middle of the 

 bush, and the work is done for the season. I found that when using the dust I had 

 to renew it after every heavy rain, whereas the stems did not need renewing, unless 

 it was a very wet season, and then, if any worms appeared, a handful of fresh stems 

 scattered through the bushes made them disappear. 



" The stems have several advantages : they are cheaper than dust ; they serve as 

 a mulch to keep the ground off the fruit, and when dug in about the bush, they 

 make an excellent manure. I think if you once gave them a fair trial you would 

 never be tempted to try any other method. 



" Last year, stems were very scarce here, and I could not get enough to mulch 

 all my bushes, so I only put a generous handful in the center of a good many 

 bushes, and they were not troubled ; but I would not like to recommend that plan 

 until I experimented further." 



For the past two years, the worm has attacked my bushes savagely ; 

 but, as I am very fond of currants, and relish white, powdered sugar more 

 than hellebore, I fought the pests successfully by hand-picking. I kept a 

 boy, at moderate wages, whose business it was to kill insects and worms. 

 He had a lively time of it occasionally, for Nature sometimes appeared to 

 take sides with the pests. 



The cautious use of lime and salt around and under the bushes might 

 prove beneficial, since the worm descends into the soil before changing into 

 a pupa. 



The currant and gooseberry are also infested with several species of 

 plant-lice. A gentleman whose bushes were attacked by lice and the 

 currant worm at the same time, wrote to the Country Gentleman that he 

 destroyed both by a strong decoction of white hellebore, applied from 

 a fine rose-sprinkling can. The bushes were turned back and forth, so 

 as to get the solution on the under side of the leaves. The writer 

 concludes : 



" The decoction of hellebore must be strong to be effectual. I make it as 

 follows : To a gallon of boiling water add a table-spoonful of pulverized hellebore. 

 After standing fifteen or twenty minutes, add three gallons of common soapsuds. 

 When cool, apply with a sprinkler. I do not know that there is any virtue in the 

 soapsuds, excepting it makes the solution stick to the leaves." 



There are three species of currant borers with unpronounceable 

 names. Their presence is shown by yellow foliage and withering 

 fruit in summer, and by brown, shriveled branches in winter. Cutting 

 out and burning are the only remedy. Usually, a vigorous bush will 

 outgrow the attacks of this enemy ; and good cultivation gives vigor, and 



