PEAR TREES INJURED BY INSECTS, ETC. 
29 
A CHEAP PAINT.— SOAK FOR WHEAT. 
Youu Reviewer, in p. 339, wishes to know if 
" a cheap paint" is calculated for outside painting. 
Tell him it will do for any side. 
For five consecutive years, I have soaked my 
seed wheat in blue stone (sulphate of copper), and 
have had neither smut nor Hessian fly. The pro- 
portion is 1 lb. to every 5 bushels of wheat, which 
is put in soak in the evening for the next day's 
sowing, keeping the water to put the next wheat 
in, adding enough more water with its proportion 
of blue vitriol to cover the wheat. It should be 
dissolved in a small quantity of hot water, as it is 
hard to dissolve in cold. If the weather should be- 
come wet and any of the soaked seed not sown, it 
may be spread in an outhouse without injury, till 
the ground is fit to receive it. James Boyle.^ 
Annapolis, Nov. 13th, 1848. 
In addition to the above, we have received the 
following communication on the same subject : — 
Let me ask my " quaint" old friend, Re- 
viewer, to turn to p. 378 of Pingry's " Painter 
and Varnisher's Guide," printed in London, in 
1816, and he will find a full and scientific account 
of cheap paint. 
Mr. Boyle has described only one mode of pre- 
paration, applicable to in-door work. The addition 
of white Burgundy pitch makes a paint for out-door 
objects. Having used this paint. I can answer for 
its excellence. The recipe given by Mr. Boyle is 
used by the Italians and others in every kind of 
"distemper" work made with chalk or argillaceous 
earths. C. D. 
Seneca, N. Y. Nov. 1848. 
Upland, or Mountain Rice. — This yields a fine 
crop on poor, sandy ridges, and will not thrive on 
lands that are wet. It differs but very little in its 
appearance from the low-land rice, except that it 
grows to only about half the height. It is general- 
ly sown in drills about eighteen inches apart, and 
worked both with the plow and hoe to keep out 
grass and weeds. It may be sown in the southern 
^states from the beginning to the end of March. It 
yields a good crop of hay the first season, and often 
springs up from the same roots the following spring. 
Two bushels of seed are sufficient for an acre. 
Another method, thought by some to he better, is, 
to sow broadcast, harrow in, and then cover the 
ground two inches thick with old rice straw, which 
will keep down the grass and weeds, and nourish 
the growing crop. The upland rice will yield about 
1,000 lbs. per acre. 
The Best Manure for Sugar Cane. — The 
very best manure in the world for cane plants is 
believed to he the cane plant itself; and if to this 
]be added a liberal atmospheric manuring (plowing), 
nothing further will be required to keep up a con- 
tinual and unimpaired fertility. The cane trash 
and leaves, in decaying, hecome converted into 
humus, or vegetable mold, and supply an abundant 
store of carbonic acid and nitrogen to the young 
plants. Their ashes contain silicate of potash ; 
carbonates of lime and potash ; phosphates of lime, 
soda, and magnesia, phosphoric acid, oxides of 
iron, Sic, &c. 
PEAR TREES INJURED BY INSECTS. 
The following correspondence between Dr. 
Plumb, of Salisbury, Ct., and Professor Harris, of 
Harvard University, cannot fail to be read with 
deep interest by all of our readers who are engag- 
ed in the cultivation of the pear, particularly by 
those who have been puzzled for a long time as to 
the cause of an apparent disease, which after all is 
nothing but the work of an insignificant insect : — 
When a man has arrived to half your eminence 
in any profession, he is considered public property, 
I will, therefore, make no other apology for this in- 
trusion. 
From the year 1834 till 1838, inclusive, I lost 
several hundred pear trees by one disease, most of 
which were young. They have not heen troubled 
with the malady since, until the present year. 
Now some thirty are affected. The bark turns 
black, beginning to change sometimes as early as 
July; more often in August ; then again not until 
September. Sometimes I lose trees by the disease 
called " pear blight," which first appears by a 
change in the leaves. But the disease I wish now 
to describe, shows itself first in the hark. The 
leaves go through the season well enough ; the 
greater part of the trees do not put on foliage the 
next season ; some leaf out, partially, two years ; 
yet the disease has terminated fatally, in every in- 
stance, with me. I have sometimes cut off small 
trees near the ground, and grafted them. Occasion- 
ally they live a few years ; but it is lost labor. 
The present season, I have become jealous of an 
insect being the author of the mischief. I first ob- 
served them on the affected trees in September ; 
yet they might have been there through the season. 
They were found on the diseased trees, and no 
where else. I do not find them exactly described 
in your valuable report to the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature. They appear to belong to the aphis tribe, 
and jump like fleas. I send you specimens of the 
insect in their various stages of existence, and like- 
wise of the disease. The insects were caught 
about the middle of November. Any information 
relative to their natural history, or to the disease 
affecting my trees will be thankfully received. 
Ovid Plumb. 
Salisbury, Ct., Dec. 4th, 1848. 
PROFESSOR HARRIS' REPLY. 
You have correctly stated that the insects which 
injured your pear trees, "belong to the aphis tribe, 
and jump like fleas." Although this particular 
species is not described in my Report, or " Treatise 
on Insects Injurious to Vegetation," some brief re- 
marks on the genus Psyla, to which these leaping 
plant lice pertain, will be found in the work, pages 
186,187. 
All the specimens sent had completed their trans- 
formations, and were in the winged, or adult state, 
both males and females; but were injured some- 
what by mold, and had probably lost their natu- 
ral colors by drying, so as to render it uncertain 
whether they belong to any described species or 
not. It is highly probable, however, that they are 
the true Psyla pyri, of European naturalists, and 
cultivators, or a closely-allied indigenous species. 
Not being acquainted with your insect in the 
