^76 
APPLE TREES. 
with it, calculating that the bitterness of the decoc- 
tion would render the favourite food of the insects 
unpalatable to them. But I was deceived : the bugs 
continued their depredations as though no pains had 
been taken to dislodge them. 
The application of spirit of turpentine killed them 
at once, and for a few days after it had been applied 
I was in hopes that their extermination had been 
effected ; but others soon appeared. 
Despairing of success, I was on the point of quit- 
ting the field, and leaving the bugs in undisturbed 
possession of it ; when I began to conjecture that I 
had not gone the right way to work. I reflected, 
that none of my applications could have penetrated 
sufficiently deep into the curved and knotty sinu- 
osities of the diseased parts ; and that, on this ac- 
count, there would be a sufficient force of the enemy 
left alive to recommence its depredations at the first 
favourable opportunity. Wherefore I concluded, 
that nothing short of the entire destruction of the 
eggs, the young, and the adult, could save the trees 
from ultimate ruin. Knowing that the bug could 
not exist if totally deprived of air, I resolved to 
bury it alive ; and this I effected by an application at 
once the most easy and simple that can be imagined. 
It costs nothing. 
I mixed clay with water, till it was of a consist- 
ency that it could be put on to the injured parts 
of the tree, either with a mason's trowel, or with a 
painter's brush. I then applied it to the diseased 
places of the tree, and it soon smothered every bug. 
A second coat upon the first filled up every crack 
