120 HORTICULTURAL MANUAL. 



certain preventive is to throw a small mound of earth 

 around the lower part of the stem late in autumn. For 

 some reason not known to the writer the mice never ascend 

 the mound, but run their trails under the snow around it. 

 If the mounding has been neglected damage may later be 

 largely prevented by tramping the snow firmly around the 

 lower part of the stem. If there is no snow, and mice are 

 numerous, binding the stems with woven mosquito-bar 

 wire will prevent damage. The wire will also protect from 

 rabbits. But washing the stems with unpalatable solutions 

 is the usual method of protecting trees from rabbits. The 

 best wash yet tested is made by adding to one gallon of 

 stale urine one quart of fresh lime, and one pint of pine 

 tar stirred in when hot. Then stir in flowers of sulphur 

 until it makes a wash that can be applied with a stiff brush 

 or old broom. The writer has not known even the Jack- 

 rabbit, or the European rabbits, to touch a stem covered 

 with this wash, that sticks well to the stem over winter 

 usually. But during rainy winters it sometimes happens 

 that a second wash is necessary where rabbits are numer- 

 ous. 



130. Stem -"borers. The crown borer often fatally injures 

 young apple- and quince-trees. But it is easily managed 

 by washing the stems about the first, middle, and last of 

 June with a strong solution of soap and water. Before 

 applying the wash search for the castings of the borers 

 around the lower part of the stem. If any are found they 

 can be crushed in their burrows without cutting the bark 

 with a flexible wire that will follow the burrow. If the 

 larva is reached the evidence will be given on the point of 

 the wire. With this treatment the writer with forty years' 

 experience has never sustained much injury by borers, 

 while neighbors who trusted to cutting out the larva have 

 lost hundreds of trees. 



