FOR PROFIT. 205 



taking care to keep the spray well under the bushes 

 and leaves. These minute insects require a small 

 pocket-lens to locate them. They spread and increase 

 so rapidly that the earliest possible attention should 

 be given them. 



Towards the end of the month Plum and Damson 

 Trees will be showing blossom, and Apples and Pears 

 be opening their buds. Careful watching for insects 

 will ensure timely washing. Newly hatched caterpillars 

 are so much easier to kill than when older. 



Grafting is best done in March ; the younger trees 

 should be first done, the old trees headed back in 

 February, in which the flow of sap is less active, being 

 left until the last. 



April. — Continue to wash all trees attacked by 

 insects, especially curled up leaves in Plums and 

 Cherries, or their extension growth will be crippled ; 

 if the points of the shoots can be spared, they may 

 be cut off and burnt at once, with the aphides upon 

 them. « 



If heavy rains have " caked " the surface of planta- 

 tions, it will pay to break them up with the pony 

 hoe, or by hand hoe labour. This will kill seedling 

 weeds, render the after cultivation easier, and prevent 

 that evaporation of moisture which goes on where 

 land is hard and unmoved. 



Fruits will now be blossoming all round, and great 

 damage is often done by early frosts. These cannot 

 be prevented ; but smother-fires, so arranged that their 

 smoke travels across the plantation, will often be of 

 service. It is generally admitted that well cultivated 

 orchards and plantations suffer less than "half done" 



