930 
Annual Report of New York 
CURRANT-WORM. REMEDIES. GREEN HELLEBORE. HAND-PICKING. LIMB. 
inches long. Using the stick as a handle, the bag can readily be 
passed in among the bushes to any point where a worm is seen, 
and a slight shake being given, it sifts the powder out upon the 
very leaves on which we desire to dust it. The slightest quantity 
distributed over the upper side of a leaf is equally as effective as a 
thick coating would be. 
The green hellebore, Veratrum viride , of our country, a plant 
growing everywhere in our moist meadows, and commonly called 
“ poke,” with its large leaves prettily plaited lengthwise, and so 
compacted together as to give it some resemblance to a cabbage, is 
so closely like the white hellebore of Europe that botanists are not 
fully agreed that the two are really distinct species. The root of 
our American plant will undoubtedly be as efficacious for destroy¬ 
ing this currant worm as is the imported hellebore. But this latter 
is so readily obtained from the druggists at such a moderate price, 
and comes to us ground to such £ tine dust, and ready for imme¬ 
diate use, that we have no occasion for resorting to the latter. But 
if in any place the white hellebore cannot be had, our American 
plant is everywhere at hand; and a decoction of its roots sprinkled 
upon the bushes from a watering pot, will undoubtedly be found to 
be perfectly effective. 
Next to this remedy, the most effectual one for subduing this 
insect and saving the currant and gooseberry bushes from its 
ravages, appears from the experience of many persons to be the 
slow and tedious process of hand-picking. Some have recom¬ 
mended gathering the flies when they first issue from the ground in 
the spring. Robert Gray, of Dristwich, states in the Gardener's 
Chronicle , 1855, p. 281, that he spent an hour or two in the morn¬ 
ing for a few days and caught several hundred flies, thus lessening 
their numbers so that but few eggs wero afterwards found on the 
leaves. And R. Varden, of Seaford Grange, writes (p. 317) that 
through the middle of April (the flies coming forth there somewhat 
earlier than they do here in New York) his men before breakfast 
tapped the bushes with a stick, when the flies would generally dart 
to the ground and could be easily secured, thus sometimes getting 
nearly a pint of them, their bodies full of eggs. There cannot be 
a doubt this is a very advantageous step to take. 
Slacked lime sifted upon the leaves two or three times a week 
seems to be the next most successful remedy for destroying the 
worms, but the testimony as to its efficacy is quite conflicting. 
