Proceedings of the Farmers^ Club, 385 



infest onr gardens : Mix in three or four gallons of warm water one 

 pound black or white hellebore, which costs about thirty cents liere, 

 and add to this, say eight or ten pails of water. Apply to the 

 infected trees, bushes, or vines in any way you please, but a syringe 

 is the best. The cure will be immediate and certain. I have tried 

 it on the apple-tree worm, gooseberry and currant worm, and it kills 

 them at once, as also the rose louse. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — This same recipe, or a similar one, appears in 

 the old Cottage Gardener's Dictionary, published in England forty 

 odd years age. Nevertheless, the remedy is none the worse for that. 



Mr. J. G. Gibbard, of Western New York, said he had used pul- 

 verized shale as a substitute for plaster, and that applied to goose- 

 berry bushes it destroyed all insect pests with which they might be 

 infested. He also stated that forty townsmen of his had had similar 

 experience, and he proposes to send a quantity for trial by any person 

 whose name the club may suggest. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble, Entomologist.— I hope, Mr. Chairman, we 

 shall have nothing to do with remedies unauthorized by the deduc- 

 tions of scientific research. This application of a substance called 

 shale — it must be a nostrum. Science ignores it ; entomologists have 

 not written about it. It is contrary to the nature, the birth, modes 

 of living, and tlie death of these anhnals to suppose that a dusting of 

 ground rock can terminate their earthly career. 



The Chairman. — We know no law superior to that of experience. 

 If these men in Western New York have found, in a great number 

 of instances, that a particular rock pulverized is an effectual remedy^ 

 it must be accepted as a fact, no matter what science affirms. Some 

 shales are rich in carbonate of lime ; others have phosphate of lime. 

 Mr. Thompson says that fine ground bone drives them from his vines ; 

 others have found plaster effectual. We shall be glad to make trial 

 of the pulverized shale of which these gentlemen speak. 



Adjourned. 



June 2S, 1869. 



Nathan C. Ely, Esq., in the chair; Mr. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 



A Coughing Hokse. 



Mrs. M. A. Dewitt, Fidelity. — Will you, or some of the Club, 



please give a remedy for cough in a horse. I have a fine animal that 



last fall took a cough. In the winter he had distemper, which left 



[Inst.] 25 



