276 APPLE TREES. 



with it, calculating that the bitterness of the decoc- 

 tion would render the favourite food of the insects 

 unpalatable to them. But I was deceived: the bugs 

 continued their depredations as though no pains 

 had been taken to dislodge them. 



The application of spirit of turpentine killed 

 them at once, and for a few days after it had been 

 applied I was in hopes that their extermination had 

 been effected; but others soon appeared. 



Despairing of success, I was on the point of quit- 

 ting the field, and leaving the bugs in undisturbed 

 possession of it; when I began to conjecture that I 

 had not gone the right way to work. I reflected, 

 that none of my applications could have penetrated 

 sufficiently deep into the curved and knotty sinu- 

 osities of the diseased parts ; ' and that, on this 

 account, there would be a sufficient force of the 

 enemy left alive to recommence its depredations at 

 the first favourable opportunity. Wherefore I con- 

 cluded, that nothing short of the entire destruction 

 of the eggs, the young, and the adult, could save 

 the trees from ultimate ruin. Knowing that the 

 bug could not exist if totally deprived of air, I 

 resolved to bury it alive ; and this I effected by an 

 application at once the most easy and simple that 

 can be imagined. It costs nothing. 



I mixed clay with water, till it was of a consist- 

 ency that it could be put on to the injured parts 

 of the tree, either with a mason's trowel, or with a 

 painter's brush. I then applied it to the diseased 

 places of the tree, and it soon smothered every bug. 

 A second coat upon the first filled up every crack 



