66 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCEETT. 



The virtue of such applications is disputed by some, but there is so 

 much testimony in their favor that I have great hope of success. I 

 find many recipes in the papers and in my scrap-books. One that 

 has a promising look is a kerosene emulsion, described in the Rural 

 New Yorker as being used b}' the orange growers of Florida. It is 

 made as follows: "Formula: — common or whale-oil soap, half a 

 pound, dissolved in one gallon of boiling water ; add two gallons of 

 kerosene and churn while hot. In using, dilute with ten parts 

 water. This makes thirty-three gallons of solution at a cost of one 

 cent per gallon, where you have cheap kerosene." This mixture I 

 have already used for spraying lousy trees, and apparently with suc- 

 cess. I would apply it, perhaps double strength, to the trunks of 

 trees b^' means of a hand force-pump, about June 15, July 1 and 15. 

 Another application, recommended b^' Prof. Cook of the Michigan 

 Agricultural College, is compounded as follows: "Dissolve two 

 quarts of soft soap in a gallon of water. Heatthis till it commences 

 to boil, then remove from the fire and at once add one pint of crude 

 carbolic acid. Stir well and keep in a close vessel. To apply this," 

 saj's Prof. Cook, "I have found a common shoe or blacking brush, 

 one with the handle diagonal to the body of the brush, most excel- 

 lent. The use of these substances is to prevent the beetle from the 

 work of egg-laying, and as the obnoxious odor of the carbolic acid 

 mixture is ver^- persistent, it retains its virtue longer than does the 

 soft soap where used alone." I would prefer to dilute Prof. Cook's 

 solution until it could be applied through a force pump. Rtuiedies 

 of this class have been often recommended, and they have been dis- 

 cussed in the meetings of the Pomological Societ}-, but I think there 

 is yet a lack of exact knowledge on the subject, and that it presents 

 an excellent field for study and experiment. 



In the first hunt for the borer, I employ a sharp knife and a wire 

 or a narrow piece of spring steel ; mallet and chisel, never. If the 

 borer has penetrated so deep that he cannot be reached by the wire, 

 it is sure that he has done nearly* all the harm he is capable of, and 

 it is much better to let him alone than to mutilate the tree badly. I 

 have not yet found a pair of eyes sharp enough to discover every 

 trace of a borer the first time, and therefore never trust to one 

 examination a year. I have always two thorough canvasses, and 

 generally three, and would prefer even four, two between August 1 

 and October 20, and two between May 1 and June 10. 



