422 [Assembly 



Moss must be kept off all trees, both forest and fruit. The 

 proper time to eradicate it is after a hard and soaking rain. It 

 yields readily to a hair cloth or coarse crash. ^ 



Old trees are subject to hollowness, canker, snails, hornets, &c. 

 Hollowness is caused by careless trimming, or by permitting a 

 branch to be broken off by the wind, and allowing the rough parts 

 to be exposed to the elements ; the rain enters, and in due course 

 of time decays the interior. If large limbs are broken by the wind, 

 they should be neatly cut some distance from the trunk, and the 

 end painted, or covered with grafting wax. Hollow trees may be 

 filled with a mixture of hay, horse dung and clay. 



Canker on trees is caused by a wound, or by burning sandy 

 laud. They must be cut out and the orifice well filled with tar and 

 oil in combination, and the whole covered with hay manure bound 

 round with a cloth. If, however, gangrene be inside, it can only 

 be cured by an application of dry sulphur, or some nitrous sub- 

 stance. 



Hornets injure hollow trees by breeding in them ; they may 

 easily be destroyed stopping up their entrance with goose dung 

 or by the fumes of sulphur 



Molts may be driven away by inserting garlic in their hollow 

 passages. 



Mice may be destroyed by sinking barrels in various parts of 

 your orchard, half filled with water, and covered with chaff. 



Caterpillers by inserting a sponge saturated with double harts- 

 horn into their webs when they first appear in the spring, may 

 be thoroughly eradicated, and after the second year will entirely 

 disappear. 



I will now give you a valuable recipe for preserving timber, 

 cordage, &c., and with it end my present long-winded discourse. 

 Place common sulphur in a cucurbit glass, and cover it with four 

 times its weight of strong aquafortis J distil this to dryness; the 

 sulphur remaining in the bottom must be placed upon glass or 

 marble, and it will dissolve into oil. This composition, rubbed 



