S38 On Blight. 



In a garden which I occupied five years since, I had two old 

 codHn trees, the stems literally covered with the aphides. I 

 tried several expedients to destroy them, but failed, and 

 found they had so secreted themselves in the deep interstices 

 of the bark that no application would reach them. I then, 

 with great care, pared the rough bark entirely off: even then 

 I could not destroy them. I at length discovered that they 

 had infested the root much below the surface of the soil. I 

 removed the earth round the root, and applied a mixture 

 consisting of strong lime water, strongly infused with tobacco ; 

 but to no good purpose. Some time after, on digging a hole 

 to plant another tree at twelve feet distant, I took up a run- 

 ning root infested with them. If, then, they can be destroyed 

 on old trees, the destruction must be very difficult. Their 

 prevalence is therefore better prevented than cured; and to 

 avoid their pernicious effects, as few nurseries are entirely 

 free from them, I washed the young trees which I have 

 planted in my present garden, as soon as received, with 

 strong soap suds from the wash-house, with a brush not suf- 

 ficiently hard to injure the buds, both tops and roots, per- 

 fectly clean. I discovered the trees received most essential 

 benefit from the washing, independently of the advantage 

 derived from the prevention of so great an evil, for most of 

 them were more or less aifected with the aphides. I after- 

 wards discovered them at the bottom of a young currant 

 tree. I instantly opened the earth, so as to make a pool 

 about 2 ft. over. I then washed the stem with the mixture 

 above named, and filled up the pool, stirring it with a broom, 

 in order that the woolly covering should not prove a pro- 

 tection ; by which means I have kept my garden entirely free 

 from them. In a number of apple trees which I planted, two 

 or three died ; and to induce those planted in the place of 

 the dead ones to overtake the trees planted the year previous, 

 I washed them in soap-suds about milk-warm, and planted 

 them immediately. The ti'ees thus treated have made shoots 

 more than four feet long the first year, and have fully an- 

 swered my expectations. I am. Sir, yours, &c. — Charles 

 Baron. Sqfron JValden, Feb. 7. 1827. 



Additional information on the subterraneous habits of the 

 A^phis lanigera will be found in Salisbury's Hints to the 

 Proprietors of Orchards (1817, 12mo). I may remark that 

 during the eve of winter I have frequently met with aphides, 

 although, I believe, not of the species lanigera, on the I'oots 

 of annual and other herbaceous plants, beneath the surface of 

 the soil ; usually, if t remember rightly, on roots that were 

 dead, dying, or decaying; and the aphides themselves, although 

 alive, were mostly very inert. 



