STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
611 
alarmed or menaced with danger, to drop themselves suddenly to the 
ground, and there lie for a short time perfectly still and as though they 
were dead. The design of Nature, in giving these insects this habit, ap¬ 
pears to have been, chiefly to protect them from being devoured by birds. 
A bird, in alighting upon a small limb, and hopping along it in search of 
insects thereon, imparts a slight jar to the limb, whereby all the insects on 
the limb are apprised of the approaching danger, and by instantly drop¬ 
ping to the ground and there lying perfectly still, they escape the impend¬ 
ing destruction. 
In view of this habit of the cureulio, Mr. Thomas, as most of you are 
doubtless already aware, recommended the spreading of sheets under the 
tree, and then striking the trunk of the tree with a club or mallet, with a 
blow sufficiently heavy to give the whole tree a sudden jar—and then 
gathering up the insects that fell upon the sheets and destroying them_ 
this operation to be repeated daily, or as often as the number of insects 
obtained showed its utility. 
Some have been well pleased with the result of this remedy ; others have 
been not at all satisfied with it, being unable to perceive that any good 
resulted from it, only a part of the insects dropping themselves when the 
tree is thus jarred—whilst the trees are much injured by this repeated 
striking, bruising and loosening their bark. Certain it is that this remedy 
is far fr*m being so efficacious and reliable as to meet our wants in the 
premises. 
A remedy which is at present receiving much notice, and is extensively 
on trial, is that of Mr. Cummings, of the N. Y. Observer, in which paper 
it has been strongly recommended for two season past—Mr. Cummings 
having found it perfectly successful, on a trial of it through two years pre¬ 
vious to its publication. He mixed four ounces of sulphur with a pound 
of whale oil soap, and added this to four gallons of lime water, to which 
an equal quantity of tolerably strong tobacco water was then added. The 
leaves of the plum trees were drenched with this mixture, from a garden 
syringe, as soon the first mark of the Cureulio was discovered on the fruit ; 
and should rains occur within three weeks thereafter, sufficient to wash this 
from the leaves, it is to be renewed. 
This remedy is not altogether so new as Mr. Cummings probably sup¬ 
poses it to be—for in the first published accounts of this insect over a hun¬ 
dred years ago, Collinson recommends to Bartram, in the homely language 
of that day, to squirt tobacco water among the leaves of the trees to drive 
this insect from them. 
We doubt not the whale oil soap is a valuable addition to the tobacco 
water. But whether the lime renders the mixture any more efficacious 
than it will be without it, we are inclined to doubt. And as to sulphur> 
although it has long been in popular repute as an antidote to all kinds of 
insects, we have yet to learn that it possesses any efficacy whatever in re¬ 
pelling or destroying any of this class of beings, save only the iteh mite. 
Certain I am, that to the common apple tree caterpillar sulphur is more 
