408 Queries and Answers. 



Art. V. Queries and Answers. 



DESTROYING the Red Spider (Afcarus telarius). (p. 289.) — If J. B. W. will 

 use the following compound, he will find it completely eradicate those un- 

 welcome visiters the red spiders, without in the slightest degree dis- 

 figuring or injuring any part of vegetation to which he may think proper to 

 apply it. To each of four gallons of clean rain water, heated to about 100° 

 Fahrenheit, add a small tea-cupful of soft soap, stirring and mixing both well 

 together. Then apply it with a syringe, in the same manner, same proportion, 

 and about the same time as water is generally supplied ; that is, well drench, 

 between five and six o'clock in the afternoon, every part that is in the least 

 infested, or likely to be so, and repeat the operation three successive after- 

 noons ; the fourth, instead of the nostrum, use clean water. Then again 

 the nostrum for three successive afternoons, using on the fourth clean water, 

 and so on ; recollecting never to syringe with clean water on any of the days 

 that the nostrum has been used ,• nor with the nostrum on any of the days 

 allotted for clean water. I have invariably found that nine syringings with 

 the mixture totally destroyed every appearance of the insects, and have never 

 found them make their appearance during the season after its application. It 

 will be perceived, by a minute inspection, after the first two or three syringings, 

 that the foliage has assumed what botanists would call a " slightly glaucous " 

 appearance. It is this glaucous appearance which baffles ever}' effort of 

 the insect ; as every leaf and branch is thinly coated over with soft soap, 

 yet so thinly that in vegetation there is no perceptible difference. The object 

 of syringing with clean water every third day is to remove the glaucous ap- 

 pearance, and allow vegetation twenty-four hours' respite ; which enables the 

 plant to sustain, without the slightest perceptible difference, the next three 

 dressings with the nostrum. Were the glaucous appearance not removed at 

 the specified time, but the nostrum continued for four, five, or six times, the 

 foliage would get so over-coated, that a very perceptible difference would 

 directly show itself; and the leaves would assume a brown unhealthy appear- 

 ance : the washing every third day (using a plentiful supply of clean water) 

 quite prevents this. — Abdalonymus. July 7. 1 834. 



Destruction of 'the Red Spider ; in answer to J. B. W., p. 289. — Make a table- 

 spoonful of sulphur into a paste, and afterwards put it into a large pot full of 

 water. The sulphur should be in such proportion to the water as to make 

 the latter yellow. Syringe the leaves with this mixture two or three times in 

 the course of a fortnight, adding a little more sulphur each time. The spider 

 will soon bid you farewell. — P. Davis. Upton, near Stratford, Essex, June 

 24. 1834. 



Vitality of the Silver Fir.- — Has any one of your correspondents observed 

 the stump and roots of this tree alive for a number of years after the tree was 

 felled ? M. Dutrochet says that the stump and roots of the silver fir (yf bies 

 Picea) continue to live, and even to grow, during a great many years. He ob- 

 served, in the forests of the Jura, that all the stumps of the silver fir, the 

 branches of which had been many years felled, were still vigorous as well as 

 the roots; while the stumps and roots of the Norway spruce, in the same 

 forest, were all dead, including even those which had been recently felled. 

 Stumps of silver firs which had been felled forty-five years were still full of 

 life. — J. W. L. 



The Weeping Ash (IX. 596., and X. 180.) is purely a seminal variety. This 

 I have long since proved. About ten years since, twenty thousand seedlings, 

 from a fine old weeping tree in the nursery, were planted in the same quarter 

 with twenty or thirty thousand common ash seedlings. I was much interested 

 in the experiment ; but, on carefully watching their growth, the only peculiarity 

 I remarked was their being rather more vigorous in habit, and, if possible, 

 more straight in their stems : not one showed the least inclination to copy its 

 humhle progenitor. ■ — T. Rivers, jun. Sawbridgcivorth, May 23. 1834. 



