1 66 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



HOW TO DESTROY OUR INSECT ENEMIES. 



HE insect enemies of the fruit grower are yearly increasing in 

 number, making the business of cultivating fruit much less 

 simple than formerly ; but this only enables the enterprising 

 man to reap the greater success, for, with the many imple- 

 ments and remedies now within reach, almost every kind of 

 insect and fungus may be destroyed, and fruit of the finest 

 size and perfection be produced. In this article we propose 

 to deal chiefly with some of the more familiar, the chief object being to point 

 out the latest and most approved remedies. 



Plant Lice ^re of late, among the most common of all insect foes, and 

 frequently are very difficult to overcome. Green ones are found in the early spring 

 upon the young apple leaves, sucking away their strength ; and black ones in 

 immense numbers cover the leaves and fruit of our cherry trees, a little later on, 

 quite destroying one's appetite for this luscious fruit. Spraying with arsenites, 

 and many other remedies which we have tested, have proved entirely unavailing 

 to remove these pests, but kerosene emulsion carefully applied is effective. A 

 good recipe for its preparation is as follows ; One quart soft soap, one pint 

 kerosene oil and two quarts of water. A strong suds is first made and the kero- 

 sene added while warm, when a permanent mixture will be formed, and this 

 should be diluted with four gallons of water when required for use. The trees 

 should then be thoroughly sprayed with this emulsion and the earlier the work 

 is done after their first appearance the better. 



Bark Lice have been so frequently described in these columns, together 

 with the methods of treatment, that little need be said here regarding them. The 

 oyster shaped scales, from which they derive the name of oyster shell louse, and 

 which appear so harmless in the autumn and winter months, are each a pro- 

 tection for 60 or 70 tiny eggs. These hatch out about the first of June into 

 young lice, so small that they can scarcely be discerned without the aid of a 

 hand glass. About this time they creep out from in under the scales and roam 

 about over the branches, seeking a suitable place to settle down for life. Fre- 

 quently they are carried by the wind, or by the feet of birds, to other trees, and 

 thus a badly infested tree may produce pestilence for the whole orchard. In 

 two or three weeks they will all have settled down, each in his chosen place, 

 there to insert his tiny beak and suck from the trees their vitality. Presently the 

 scale forms over them, by the secretion from the surface of their bodies, and this 

 becomes completely impervious by the month of August, so that no application 

 at this season of the year would have any effect upon the life of the insect hid- 

 den away beneath it. Scraping the old bark from our apple trees in the winter 

 and spring months is a very useful operation, as it also removes a large number 

 of the scales, and gives a smoother surface for the application of washes later 



