FRUITS. CHAP. 



frequently comes after the cutting out of a luxuriant 

 branch, especially if that branch be cut off near to the 

 trunk and in the spring or summer, which it never 

 ought to be if it can be avoided. A tree will sometimes 

 gum, and cease to gum afterwards ; and, though it 

 gum, it will bear. If it continue to gum, and the gum 

 appear in several parts of it at the same time, and 

 attack the tree severely, it will soon cease to produce 

 wood fit for bearing, and the sooner it is cut down 

 and thrown away, the better. 



293. PEACH-BUG. This is a thing between louse 

 and bug : it is of a green colour, and clings along 

 upon the wood of the peach trees, and of nectarines of 

 course. These are destroyed very quickly by fumigating 

 the trees with strong tobacco-smoke, or washing them 

 with water in which tobacco has been steeped. Jt is 

 rather difficult to fumigate against a wall ; but, at any 

 rate, the wood can be well washed with tobacco-water. 

 These insects, however, must be destroyed by one means 

 or another j or they will spoil the crop for the year, and 

 spoil the tree too. 



294. MAGGOT. There is a maggot which comes in 

 apple-trees and pear-trees, but particularly the former, 

 just before the tree opens its blossoms. You will see the 

 young leaves that have come out curl up longwise. If 

 you open those curls, you will find enveloped in a very 

 small web, a little maggot that you can hardly clearly 

 discern with the naked eye. From this, its birth-place, 

 it creeps away into the cups of the blossoms and there 

 feeds upon the germ of the fruit ; and becomes a visible 



