200 



Insects most injurious to Cultivators. 



might not clear the land quite as effectually, and with little 

 greater cost in the end. The mischief is, that in England we 

 are prone to take it for granted that certain evils are irremediable, 

 without ever fairly trying to remove them. Thus, if our hedges 

 or trees are generally and extensively infested with caterpillars, 

 we should laugh at the idea of getting rid of them by any manual 

 operations ; and yet the French and Belgians, in similar cases, 

 constantly employ such means ; and, in fact, the municipal 

 authorities every year enjoin, by printed notices and fines for 

 noncompliance, on the proprietors of land, to echeniller their 

 trees. Even the very Turks (in such matters less fatalists than 

 ourselves) have the good sense to send out whole armies to col- 

 lect locusts, and to destroy them (as mentioned in the papers in 

 a recent instance) by thousands of bushels. 



[The process di'ecJiemller^ or of removing caterpillars, as prac- 

 tised in Belgium, and also in some parts of Germany, in the 



74 



case of trees of considerable height, is, to cut off' the points of 

 the young shoots, on the leaves of which the caterpillars are 



feeding, with an echenil- 



loir, or with a very long- 

 handled pair of shears, 



sometimes, in England, 



called an averruncator. 



That the practice is of 



considerable antiquity in 



Belgium, is evident from 



the figure of an echenil- 



loir given in one of the 

 oldest Dutch books on gardening we have ; 

 viz. Vander Groen's Jardinier dcs Pai/s-Bas, 

 published in 1699 ; of which^^. 74. is a copy. 

 Here the blades of the instrument are fixed ; and, forming two 

 acute angles, a shoot may be cut off" with either of them, by 



77 



pushing the instrument upwards, or drawing it downwards. 

 Many improved forms have since been produced of the eche- 

 nilloir, or averruncator, both on the Continent and in Britain, 

 most of which will be found figured in the Encyc. qf Gard., 

 new edit. One of the best is shown in Jig. 75. ; but^^. 76. is 



