74 
THE PEACH-TREE. 
applied, but later in the season. I believe the ap¬ 
plications to be about equal, except that the but¬ 
ter had the advantage of salt. We all know that 
animal fat, grease, and fish-oil, are highly offensive 
and disagreeable to all insects which are grami¬ 
nivorous and herbaceous, and we know they are 
concentrated excellent manures. We have the 
authority of Judge Buel, that oil will drive the 
insects from the trunk and branches. Mr. Thorp 
of England recommends three parts of rosin to one 
of oil, put on warm with a painter’s brush. 
Harris recommends scraping and brushing down 
with potash, soft soap, salt, or pickle, and tobacco- 
juice. All these are good, and produce effectually 
the same results: but any animal fat or oil with 
salt, I should prefer, they are very penetrating; 
the bark is a great absorbent of oil and grease. 
Soap-fat and salt are always to be had at a reason¬ 
able value. If tallow or lard compose the fat, it 
should be warmed; in fact, artificial warmth, ex¬ 
cept of an August day, is desirable. Recollect, 
this medicine goes far, a small lump of grease 
covers a great space, the application should extend 
as far as possible to the limbs. Gas-water, and 
gas-tar, are recommended by the English books, 
but they must be greatly diluted, for these refuses 
killed the fish in the Thames at London. Lime 
and soft-soap have been recommended, put on as 
white-wash ; the experience of the writer is against 
such application of lime ; the lime is probably too 
absorbent of the sap, and fills the pores. 
The English authorities assert that some of the 
varieties of the lice are found on the extreme ends 
of the twigs, the injury to the entire tree is prob¬ 
ably much less there, but they too should be 
reached. 
I now come to the last of the remedies, without 
which, much as I value the preceding suggestions, 
I fear the tree can not be preserved. I refer to fu¬ 
migation ; that the roots can be preserved, that 
the bark and large limbs can be scoured by the 
washes, I verily believe ; but the tender twigs and 
leaves, and fruit, are to be protected. Watering, 
shaking, and dusting them with snuff and sulphur, 
are ineffectual remedies in practice, however good 
in theory. Smoking, as a remedy, particularly for 
lice, is well known. A few minutes’ smoking 
brings them from the rose and other plants to the 
ground; a second smoking clears a green-house; 
the conservatory, and green-house plants could be 
hardly preserved, except by smoking. The smo¬ 
king, therefore, must be admitted to be a complete 
remedy against (I had almost said) the only ene¬ 
my the peach-tree has. But it will be said, you 
can not smoke an orchard. I admit the diffi¬ 
culties, but it is by no means impossible. You 
have the material, say tobacco-stems, cheap, or 
better yet, raise your own tobacco—raise an ex¬ 
cess of peppers—purchase a pound of sulphur. I 
fear I hear some say you have got the salt, but 
“ you have got to get it on their tails.” I don’t de¬ 
spair—a peach-tree is seldom, now-a-days, over 
12 feet in height, and 12 feet in diameter of limbs 
and foliage. We will look in the face our most 
difficult patient first. 
Procure an old tin or sheet-iron vessel, similar 
to a smith’s or plumber’s furnace, having a small 
aperture near the bottom, and open at top, or an 
inverted light wooden bee-hive, for but little fire is 
required to make smoke. Secure this furnace or 
box to a pole 4 or 5 feet long, flinging first a few 
dull coals in the bottom, or very hot ashes—then 
throw in your tobacco, sulphur, Cayenne pepper, 
&c. Select a damp day in spring or summer, and 
still weather if you can, and smoke the tree well, 
and the lice will fall, and the insects which you 
do not kill, shake from the tree. The first puff of 
smoke will make most of them loose their hold ; 
move your furnace so that the smoke will reach 
every part of the tree, sometimes raising and 
sometimes lowering it, and, if any wind, go to 
windward. The writer believes a man could not 
breathe such fumigation many minutes—he would 
fall. Other more deleterious substances might be 
applied. The insects referred to, in spring and 
summer are all life; some have wings, the males 
particularly, and would, if possible, leave the tree. 
I think they will be generally killed ; but one thing 
is certain, the tree will he smoked. 
All insects are particular as to their food. The 
grub which greedily devours the quince-stock, when 
used to graft pears on, will not touch the natural 
pear-stock. It does not agree with Linnseus that 
they are both the same thing. It is said the brim¬ 
stone butterfly has been known to fly hundreds of 
miles to select a shrub, the leaves of which hex 
grub progeny like to feed upon. Now, would any 
of the insects referred to go to a tobacco, brimstone 
smoked tree to lav their eggs and rear their pro¬ 
geny ? A segar only, will make curtains smell for 
several days, and a ham never loses its smoky flavor 
when only wood or cobs are used. The soft and 
porous leaves readily absorb the smoke fumes of 
tobacco and sulphur. We of New York do not 
breathe pleasantly when brush is burnt in New 
Jersey. I have, I hope, convinced my readers that 
much advantage, at least, may be had by such ap¬ 
plications. But I will give them an alternative 
more troublesome, but more in fact, quite cer¬ 
tain. 
The last spring I tried the smoking materials 
above described in a green-house; everybody in 
the dwelling-house which was only adjacent, 
coughed and sneezed most violently. I was al¬ 
most suffocated, being for a moment in the green¬ 
house. I gave it up for that day. The next day 
I took the plants out of the green-house, and had 
them brought into the yard; some were 6 or 7 
feet high, and set on top or on the side of one an¬ 
other. This made a small stack of plants, per¬ 
haps 10 feet high, by 8 or 10 feet in diameter. I 
then took two table-cloths, laid them one on each 
side of the stack, covering it up to the top, and 
put two or three pins in the cloth which reached 
to the ground. I had a good smoke-house, and 
the whole worked to a charm and no mistake in 
it. The smoke, ascending through the stack, 
came down and escaped at the highest open space. 
After a little while I closed such openings and 
made others, and sometimes opened the cloths 
near the top, by which means the current of smoke 
was carried in different parts, smoking all alike. 
Now I recommend the same application to the 
12 by 12 peach-tree, with some little modification. 
