308 [ ASSEMBLV 



ago, and the good ejEfect has not gone yet I added to my com- 

 posts bones dissolved in sulphuric acid. 



Apple orchards require lime, for the dry matter of the bark 

 and leaf of the apple tree contains fifteen per cent, of lime. Long 

 growth of apple tre^s exhausts the lime within their reach, and 

 th^ must have a new supply. Give it to them properly com- 

 posted with muck. Use the lime freely whenever there is plenty 

 of organic matter for it to act on. 



Judge Van Wyck. — Insects are the greatest evil to our fruits.. 

 Cleanliness may do much to prevent it — but yet some plan must 

 be fallen upon which will destroy them. The Aphis, or plant 

 louse, is a wide-spread mischief. I have dusted plants with pow- 

 dered lime, when the dew was on, with some success. Birds 

 help us greatly — they are known to scrape them off in great 

 numbers with their bills. They pick ofif the ants which some- 

 times largely infest fruit trees. I saw a tree hurt by the ants 

 who occupied a hole in it. The birds eat them up, and made 

 their nest in the hole, and that tree again gave good fruit. 



Professor Mapes. — Certainly, keep the trees clean if you can. 

 Pat six bushels of common salt on an acre and it will destroy 

 the grubs. Unhealthy trees attract insects! J^incty per cent of 

 theml I have on my farm, placed in fruit trees, one hundred and 

 fifty boxes for wrens ; they are now all occupied by the industri- 

 ous little insect destroyers, and I suppose if I had five thousand 

 boxes they would all be inhabited by wrens. Harlem oil is good 

 to drive oft' insects ; they hate the smell of it. When we do not 

 manure well enough our cabbages are apt to be club-footed and 

 be full of the aphis. Scotch snuff" does good among them. For 

 caterpillars I use a copper tube, in which I put some of the burn- 

 ing fluid — touch the nest when they are in and destroy them. 

 You will always find the family at home at certain times of the 

 day, so that then you may make one swoop ! repeat this and you 

 will find the next nest more silky and delicate, and soon they 

 will disappear altogether. The fruit coming of late years to this 

 city is so great, I under ook a comparison between it and the 

 supply of fruit to London. I find that the city of New- York 



