WR. M. DUNN ON THE EXTIRPA.TION OF TITE VINE-PEST. 81 
VII. Statement of the various Plans tried during the years 1867, 
1868, and 1869, to extirpate the " Vine-pest ^\Fhylloxera vasta- 
trix) from the Vines at Powerscourt, county of Wicklow, 
Ireland, with full details of the plan successfully adopted to 
eradicate it. By Malcolm Dunn. 
Early in July, in the year 1867, the "Vine-pest" {Phylloxera 
vastatrix) made its first appearance at Powerscourt on the leaves 
and young wood of the vines in two late vineries. It being new 
to me, I was at first very much puzzled what to make of it ; but 
one thing I saw clearly, at the rate it was increasing, that it cer- 
tainly would soon destroy the vines if it was not eff*ectually 
checked ; so that I at once began to try to get rid of it by some 
of the usual methods of exterminating plant-insects, such as 
syringing heavily where we could get at them without damaging 
the fruit then on the vines, fumigating with tobacco and capsi- 
cums, dusting with snuff", sulphur, hellebore, Cayenne pepper, &c. ; 
but I found all of little use, owing to the habit the insect has of 
hiding itself in the soft tissue of the young wood and in swellings 
of the leaves, where none of the remedies mentioned could reach 
it; therefore finding that the "pest" still increased rapidly if 
left alone for a few days, I determined to try to keep it down as 
well as I could, by cutting off the worst infected young wood and 
leaves and burning them, until the vines would be at rest during 
the winter, when I could get the opportunity of giving them a 
thorough cleaning. 
In the meanwhile, seeing a notice in the public papers of the 
breaking out of a new Vine-disease in the South of Prance, and 
also hearing that a similar disease to that at Powerscourt had 
made its appearance in some of the London nurseries, I began to 
suspect that our vines had got the disease that was making such 
ravages in the Prench vineyards ; and as I knew nothing of its 
history, or any cure for it, I forwarded specimens of infected 
leaves to the Editor of the ' Grardener's Chronicle,' asking for 
any information he could give about it,~and got a reply in ' Notices 
to Correspondents' saying "the disease is quite new to us," and 
asking for the history of it and more specimens, which I duly 
sent. ISText week I got a reply saying " thanks for the vine-leaves. 
The disease is undescribed. We are preparing an article on it," 
signed " W." — Professor Westwood, of Oxford, I supposed. 
Just at that time (September and October 1867) the Eev. M. J, 
vol. iit. m 
