Reports to various Correspondents. 63 
matter, so that if two or more dressings are applied soon after each 
other, the cuticle of the slug may be reached. Dressings of salt and 
lime are successful in destroying these pests, two or three dressings 
being given, the second one some ten to fifteen minutes aftei the 
first.' 3 Salt applied at the rate of four or five bushels per acre, and 
lime at the rate of ten to twelve bushels per acre, will often destroy 
these noxious creatures, if done over twice in succession, salt 
especially having an injurious effect on the mucous membrane. It 
is useless, of course, to dress a field in the hot part of the day, or in 
very dry weather. The dressings should be applied when the slugs 
and snails are active, that is after heavy rains, and in the evening 
and early morning, before the sun is up ; for as the sun rises the 
slugs, &c., disappear. Slacked lime has no effect upon them, but 
soot and lime, the latter fresh, soon destroys them if applied two or 
three times. The best substance of all seems, however, to be white 
hyclro-oxide of calcium in a 1 to 2 per cent, solution. Snails are more 
difficult to destroy, owing to their retracting their bodies into the shell 
and closing the aperture ; and as they can live for several years 
without food, they offer many difficulties in the methods of destruc- 
tion. Dressings of soot seem to be the most beneficial ; the soot 
making the plant and ground obnoxious to the snails, drives them 
from the land. Nitrate of soda is likewise a very good dressing, 
both for slugs and snails, as well as for stimulating plant-growth. 
Snails have many natural enemies in birds. Thrushes and Black- 
birds especially do much good in keeping them in check. Ducks, 
Starlings, Rooks, and Pigeons also eat them greedily ; Moles, Shrews, 
and Toads eat slugs. Several species of mites are parasitic on 
slugs, but do not seem to affect them injuriously. In gardens, slugs 
and snails may be destroyed by various traps : pieces of turnip and 
cabbage-leaves, spread upon the ground, collected at night, will be 
found to have attracted numbers from the surrounding soil ; they can 
then be easily put into a pail of lime and so destroyed. Bran made 
into a mash placed here and there attracts large numbers, which can 
then be collected and destroyed. Brewers’ grains or oatmeal also 
answer well. But in the fields the most practicable way of destroy- 
ing them is by dressings, as above stated, of white hydro-oxide of 
calcium or of lime and soot or lime and salt, applied especially in 
damp weather, when these pests are most active. As invasion of 
slugs frequently comes from adjoining woods or fields a trench 
should be dug around the dressed field with gas lime in it to stop 
fresh invasion. Several gardeners have told me they have experienced 
very successful results by using ordinary wood-ash, dusted over the 
