ly 
chard, after the land is properly prepared. The forest trees if of a 
good size will at once begin to spread their protecting wings, and 
with the mutual aid secured by not planting the orchard itself too 
sparsely, all the requisite protection will be promptly and easily 
provided. 
A good mulching during open winters is of great importance to 
all fruit trees whose surface roots are liable to be killed or seriously 
injured by hard freezing in our light and porous soil. Even the 
slightest covering with leaves or late grown weeds will astonishingly 
protect surface roots from injury. These and other ways of pro- 
tecting from climate injuries have been incidentally referred to 
under different headings in the preceding pages. 
Protection acainst Insects.—-As good feeding will usually shield 
the animal creation against,vermin, so by a similar process are our 
fruit trees best protected from the injurious ravages of all insects of 
the creeping sort, or the sad effects of eggs deposited upon them by 
those of the winged kind. And in this as in all other cases, “an 
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But to guard 
against the depredations of the curculio and other flying pests upon 
our fruit, is not so easy a task. Still, the remedies are various and 
more or less efficient. But as the birds are kindly invited to aid 
me, I have never in Iowa had occasion to put in practice any of the 
specifics against the borer, or others of the tree or fruit venomous 
tribe. I can give no experimental advice upon the subject. 
Prorrction acamnst Antmats.—A good board or picket fence 
will usually keep all farm stock out of the orchard and garden, and 
for all common sized enclosures the addition of from ten to twenty 
dollars in its cost and construction would exclude the rabbits also. 
Pouched gophers and meadow mice are not so easily turned away. 
For the former, a thorough cultivation, planting the castor bean, 
and giving a liberal supply of strychnine, are the best remedies 
known to the writer. Meadow mice being the most delicious food 
of the striped ground squirrel ‘or striped gopher) are not usually 
numerous or troublesome in Iowa, where the latter largely abound. 
Keep away from near the trees all straw or mavure of any sort ; 
cast up a cone of earth around the trunks, or tramp the first deep 
snow closely about them, and in all ordinary cases very little dam- 
age from mice need be apprehended. 
