An Account of a Lime Duster, #c. 125 



of almost the whole of them ; for although they sheltered 

 themselves as long as they could, their food was rendered so 

 unpalatable, that they either died, or dropped off in search of 

 other food, so that the spring shoots of my trees were pre- 

 served in full vigour, a circumstance which had not occurred 

 for several preceding years. The next season, as soon as the 

 young caterpillars were discovered, I commenced the same 

 operations with the like success, and the foliage was then so 

 fine that I had very few bitten leaves, and the whole of my 

 orchard put on such a perfectly different appearance, that 

 persons who were in the habit of seeing it two or three times 

 in the year, were astonished at the change. The conse- 

 quence of thus preventing the destruction of the leaves was 

 a most abundant crop of fruit (from 3 to 4000 bushels), and 

 my trees are now in a most promising state for as great a 

 bloom as ever. The time for using the powder is in the dew 

 of the morning, or whenever the leaves are damp, and if there 

 should be a gentle breeze sufficient to carry the dust obliquely 

 through the head of each tree, it is the more quickly per- 

 formed. Under favourable circumstances of this sort, I found 

 that three men, provided with the powder in a large box on 

 a light wheelbarrow, could dress from two to three thousand 

 trees in a day. When the wind changed I had the trees dusted 

 on the other side. Although used ever so freely, no person 

 need fear any injury from the caustic quality of the lime on the 

 most delicate fresh expanded foliage ; it is only prejudicial to 

 insects of all kinds, and to dead vegetable matter. 



I use the lime for the trees the first time, when the bunches 

 of blossom buds are separating, but the corollas not ex- 

 panded ; at this period many small caterpillars hatch and 



