MANAGEMENT OF FRUIT TREES, Sec. 179 



These insects make their nests generally where branches 

 liave been cut off, or in hollow places, where the canker has 

 eaten holes in the trees. Their first appearance is like a white 

 down ; on touching, or rubbing them, they tinge the fingers 

 of a crimson colour, like cochineal. If suffered to remain 

 long on trees, they take wing, like aphides. The method that 

 I have followed for these ten years to destroy them is as fol- 

 lows : 



I rub the places where their nests are with an old brush, 

 such as painters use, till they are all cleaned off ; and if the part 

 be canker-eaten, I cut it clean out with a knife or chisel : I then 

 take of soap-suds and urine equal parts, and with this I wash 

 the wound and the bark all round it ; and with a brush apply 

 the composition mixed with wood ashes and the powder of 

 burnt bones, covering the wound all over with it. Afterwards 

 I shake some of the powder of wood-ashes and burnt bones, 

 mixed with an eighth part of unslaked lime finely powdered 

 and sifted, over the hollows, or v^here knobs have been cut off. 



At the same time that the trees are cleared of the cocci 

 the caterpillars should be picked off. 



The first time that I observed the new coccus, which has 

 done so much mischief to the apple-trees about London, was, 

 in a garden of my own at Chelsea, about the year 1782 or 3 ; 

 and, as far as I can learn, they were imported, among some ap- 

 ple trees, by the late Mr. Swinton, of Sloane street. Mr. Swin- 

 ton afterwards removed his nursery to the King's road near 

 Chelsea College, which now goes by the name of the Foreign 

 Nursery. 



All the gardens about Chelsea and Kensington are now 

 very much infested with these insects ; and I have frequently 

 seen them in several other parts of the kingdom. 



Doctor George Fordyce purchased several apple-trees at 

 the sale of the effects of Mr. De la Tour, editor of the Courier 

 de PEurope ; all of which were from Mr. Swinton's nursery, 

 and all infected with these insects. The doctor gave me twelve 

 of these trees, which I planted, and very soon cleared them 

 of the coccus. 



Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, Nurserymen at the vineyard, 

 Hammersmith, Messrs. Grimwood and Co. Kensington, and 

 Messrs. Gray and Wear at Brompton Park nursery, have ap- 

 / plied train oil, laid on with a painter's brush, with a view of 

 destroying these insects, but they have not been successful"*^. 



* Since writing the above, I have been informed, that the Farmers in 

 Kent likewise use train oil; \)m if they would make a fair trial of urine and 

 goap-suds, they would fiad it more effectual, and it would cost nothing but la- 



