294- 



General Notices. 



The Maggot on Onion Crops, which appears in July, may he destroyed in the 

 following manner. First stir the soil among the plants, and then water them 

 well, either with soapsuds and sulphur, or with lime-water and sulphur. This 

 is best done when the onions are grown in rows, which is always my practice. 

 Robert M'Nab. Craig, near Dundee, May 19. 1838. 



Destroying the Caterpillar on Gooseberries. — Some of my brethren recom- 

 mend powder of quicklime to be thrown on late in the evening or early in 

 the morning, when the plants are covered with the dew ; but this I look upon 

 as a clumsy and needlessly expensive mode. What is it in lime that destroys 

 insects ? Is it not the alkali ? and cannot this be got by dissolving the lime 

 in water, and then watering the bushes with it, or indeed watering the ground, 

 or any plant where insects or creeping vermin are to be destroyed. There- 

 fore I always use lime-water, and never powder of lime. When I am about 

 to apply it to gooseberry bushes, I take one of M'DougaPs garden syringes, 

 and, screwing on the bent disperser, I apply the water, first under the bushes, 

 which brings down a great portion of the caterpillars, and sends another 

 portion to the upper surfaces of the leaves. To destroy these last I do not 

 use the syringe, but the common watering-pot, with the rose on. The syringe 

 is too powerful an instrument for this purpose, and is apt to cause the 

 caterpillars to drop off, when, in falling to the ground, they cling to some of 

 the branches, and escape, or render it necessary to syringe a second time 

 underneath. Unfortunately, most of my brethren do not attack the gooseberry 

 caterpillar till it is nearly full grown, and consequently has done all the mis- 

 chief it can. I attack them as soon as the}' are hatched, when they are little 

 bigger than small points of white threads on the under sides of the leaves. 

 Formerly, I used to have disputes with my mates 

 about the white threads, which are still denied to be 

 young caterpillars by some very worthy gardeners. I 

 believe Mr. M'Dougal first pointed them out to me, 

 and explained their progress from the egg to the full- 

 grown moth ; before that, I used to think they came 

 out of the earth full grown. I would strongly re- 

 commend M'Dougal's syringe to all gardeners, as the 

 best instrument for applying lime-water, or, indeed, 

 water of any kind, to the under sides of the leaves of 

 bushes. — Thomas Simpson. Hillside, near Carlisle, 

 September, 1838. 



M'Dougal's garden syringe has been figured in our 

 sixth volume, but we here repeat the engraving {fig. 

 60.) for the benefit of our present readers. In this 

 figure, f is the cylinder or tube, in every respect the 

 same as that of the common syringe, except that 

 the end screws off; a is a bent tube, which screws 

 into the straight tube when the water is to be thrown 

 upwards; b, the inner side of one of the roses, show- 

 ing the orifice in the centre, by which the water is 

 drawn in ; c, the flap valve, which may be made either 

 of leather or metal, and beneath which there is a wire 

 grating to exclude impurities, when the water is being 

 drawn in ; d d, roses for screwing on to the end 

 either of the bent tube or the straight tube, one of 

 the roses having holes twice the size of the others ; 

 e, a convex rose, screwed on to the bent tube, with 

 lines, showing the manner in which the convexity 

 spreads the water ; g, a hollow screw for keeping in 

 the valve and netting on the inside of the rose ; h, a 

 punch, and i, a piece of wire netting, which is sent 

 along with the syringe, to enable every gardener to 

 punch out his own leather valves, and replace the 

 wire netting, should it give way. 



