IXSECTICIDES, PREVEXTIVES, AND MACHIXERY. 433 



sect can or will set on a lime-covered surface. Of course, lime 

 washes away readily, and must be renewed from time to time to be 

 thoroughly effective. Keeping it up until midsummer, however, 

 is usually sufficient, except against scales that have several broods. 



Under the heading of "preventive measures," keeping the 

 trees clean, free from all sorts of abnormal growth and from loose 

 bark, may be counted. Winter washing the trunks with a strong 

 potash solution is always advisable. This cuts away anything in 

 the form of fungus, moss or lichen growths, and leaves the bark 

 fresh and glossy for the season following. It also destroys 

 many of the insects hibernating upon the trunk in any stage. 



Finally, the most important of all preventive measures is good 

 farming. Keep crops of all kinds in the most vigorous possible 

 condition, with plenty of readily available plant food, and in 

 orchards allow no dead wood of any kind to remain over winter. 

 Dead or dying branches should be cut, carted out, and burnt 

 before the first warm spell of spring, and dying trees should meet 

 the same fate. There will then be nothing to encourage insects 

 either to come into the orchard or to remain there if accidentally 

 brought in. Good farming, it may again be said, is the very best 

 possible preventive of insect injury. 



It is necessary to merely mention that printer's ink, birdlime, 

 and perhaps other substances have been recommended for band- 

 ing trees, or for the purposes for which raupenleim and den- 

 drolene have been recommended. The latter are so much more 

 satisfactory and lasting that they should replace all similar sticky 

 or protective coatings. 



To prevent climbing cut worms, canker-worms, or similar 

 creatures from ascending a tree, a band of cotton batting can be 

 satisfactorily used in many cases as follows : Make the band from 

 eight to twelve inches wide and long enough to go round the 

 trunk and lap two inches. Tie tightly at the bottom of the band, 

 smooth side, if any, to the trunk, and then turn down the band 

 from the top, like an inverted funnel. This prevents the inner 

 - side of the funnel from matting when wet by rains, and under 

 ordinary circumstances forms a complete bar to the ascent of 

 insects. A band of this kind above a coating of dendrolene, to 

 prevent the bark from being eaten, ought to protect even very 

 young orchards from climbing cut-worms. 



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