144 MY FARM. 



soil subject to the dews and atmospheric influences, 

 trees will steal the nourishment ; but grass, with its 

 serried spear-blades covering the ground, steals from 

 the tree. An open fallow with crops in the inter- 

 vals, would certainly, if sustained for a period of 

 years, have contributed far greater thrift than the 

 trees now possess. But an open fallow is no protec- 

 tion against the curculio and the apple moth. If 

 there be a protection so simple, and of such propor- 

 tions as to admit of its application to a marketable 

 crop, I am not yet informed of it. A few worthy 

 old gentlemen of my acquaintance, catch a few mil- 

 lers in a deep-necked bottle, baited with molasses, 

 which is hung from the limbs of some favorite tree 

 overshadowing their pig-pen ; and they point with 

 pride to the results. I certainly admire their suc- 

 cesses, but have not been tempted to emulate them, 

 on the extended scale which the mossy orchard 

 would have afforded. 



Some persistent amateurs and pains-taking gentle- 

 men do, I know, succeed in making the young fruit 

 of a few favorite plum trees distasteful to the cur- 

 culio, by repeated ejections of a foul mixture of 

 tobacco and whale-oil soap, by which the tree has 

 a weekly bath, and an odor of uncleanness. But in 

 view of a large orchard, where apples make a leafy 

 pyramid measured by cubic yards, and cherries carry 



