earl}’’ fall digging or plowing, or the substitution of salty com- 
mercial fertilizers like kainit and nitrate of soda for barnyard 
and stable manure; or, some measure that will prevent the laying 
of eggs must be adopted. It is impossible, for instance, to poison 
the food of the borers— those pernicious insects which eat their 
way into the wood or bark of many of our fruit, ornamental, and 
forest trees; frequently so injuring the tree that it dies. 
Our efforts in such cases as these must be largely preventive, 
as, when these insects have once obtained entrance to a.tree, the 
only thing to do is either to cut them out with a knife, the remedy 
often being worse than the disease; probe for them with a flexible 
wire, or inject carbon bisulphide, potassium cyanide, or some 
such poison in their borings. All of these measures are tedious 
and at the best not entirely successful. The borers are the larvae 
of beetles, butterflies, or moths, and if we can prevent the adult 
insect from ovipositing on the trunks of the trees we can save the 
trees from being damaged. Thus the round-headed apple-borer 
and the peach-borer may be controlled by covering the trunks of 
the trees for two feet above the surface of the ground with fine- 
meshed wire mosquito netting, keeping the netting about one inch 
from the trunk of the tree, filling in the space at the top of the 
cylinder with cotton, and hilling up with soil at the base to pre- 
vent the ingress of the adults. Newspapers will serve the same 
purpose, but possess the disadvantage of being unsightly and of 
having to be renewed each year. It is advisable also to spray the 
trunk up to five or six feet with lime, to which salt has been 
added to improve its adhesive qualities, or with bordeaux mix- 
ture. Cleanliness, in the way of keeping garden or orchard clear 
of dead and dying material, and rubbish of any kind, is most 
important in controlling borers or any kind of insect and fungous 
pest. 
Cut-worms, the bane of most amateur growers and many pro- 
fessionals, are difficult to control by spraying, and many varied 
methods must be adopted to get the better of this pest in gardens 
where it is abundant. Some plants, such as cabbages and 
tomatoes, may be protected by wrapping the stems in stout paper 
at planting time. They may be trapped by laying near the plants 
shingles or pieces of board under which the cut-worms will con- 
gregate, or, if one has only a few plants to take care of, the pests 
may be sought for just under the surface of the ground near the 
plants which are being attacked. One of the most effective ways 
to combat cut-worms is by means of poisoned bran, scattered lib- 
erally about the plants subject to attack. 
Sucking insects are those which obtain their food by insert- 
ing their proboscis into some part of the plant and sucking the 
sap. Among the most important of the sucking insects are the 
