727 
So. 145. | 
done any injury to the tree. It is the practice of Esquire Bald¬ 
win to wash the butts of his trees with strong lye, the last of 
August. The newly hatched grubs are now but slightly sunk in 
the bark. The lye penetrates the small orifices which they have 
formed and destroys them. He makes it an invariable rule thus 
to wash his trees every year, and siuce he commenced this treat¬ 
ment it is very rare that he has found a borer in them. 
But if, through the pressure of other avocations during the busy 
summer months, the orchard has been neglected and these borers 
have penetrated the wood, they-should still be carefully searched 
■out and destroyed, for they continue to cause irritation and injury 
to the tree so long as they remain in it. Before the fall of the 
leaf, trees which are badly infested may be known 4 by their 
sickly, chlorotic appearance. Mr. Ashton informs me, an expe¬ 
rienced person can easily determine when young trees are suffer¬ 
ing from the borer, by taking hold of them and swaying them to 
and fro. Infested trees, when thus handled, feel as though they 
were loose at the root, in consequence, no doubt, of having so 
many of their fibers cut off by the worm ; whilst unaffected trees 
feel more stiff, and as though they were firmly bound by the soil. 
But at all seasons of the year the presence of this worm can be 
most readily and certainly ascertained by examining the surface 
of the ground where it is in contact with the tree. The small 
heap of sawdust-like castings remains piled up against the bark, 
■covering the orifice from whence they were extruded, for months 
afterwards. * Therefore, in warm days in winter and early spring, 
when almost every one is most at leisure and has the strongest 
relish for some out-door work of this kind, the snow being off the 
ground, these borers may be hunted with success. 
Various expedients for killing the worm, such as injecting dif¬ 
ferent solutions, plugging up the hde, thrusting a wire into it, 
&c , have been proposed, many of them, I must think, by persons 
who had very little practical acquaintance with the subject on 
which they were writing—the opening into the burrow being at 
the surface of the earth in most cases, so low down and difficult 
of access by grass and often by suckers or young shoots growing 
in front of it, as to render a resort to many of these remedies very 
