GOOD EFFECTS OF PLASTER. 
75 
On the first bursting of the buds and starting of 
the leaves, procure some cheap cotton-cloth, cost 
4 or 5 cents per yard—50 yards might be required 
to make a tent-like covering for the tree. Open 
at one side, and when the tree was enclosed, let 
the sides be brought together. The extending it 
over the tree might be assisted by a pole of 12 or 
15 feet in length. If the tree is 12 feet high, and 
the limbs and foliage 4 feet from the ground, there 
would be 8 feet to be covered, say 4 yards on each 
side at bottom, and 4 more at top; costing, say 
$2.50. A hogshead-hoop, and attaching the falling 
folds to it, would facilitate the operation. A pole 
stuck in the ground and the tree supports it all. 
Boys could now do the smoking—less than 30 
minutes would suffice, or 25 trees might, be smo¬ 
ked in a day. Each tree of such size ought, on an 
average, to yield three bushels, and be worth, to a 
private family, or in the market, a dollar a bushel. 
If we estimate a man and two boys at $1.50, use 
of materials at 50 cents, is $2, twice repeated, 
each tree or 3 bushels of peaches would cost 16 
cents, or 75 bushels $4. I am supposing you have 
now got the trees, and they do not bear. This is 
certainly much cheaper than to buy trees, plant 
them, and have them occupy the ground, and pro¬ 
duce nothing. If you have large orchards you can 
afford to do your work with a handier contrivance. 
Erect a slight frame twenty feet square, and 
fifteen feet high, so as not to require sleepers on 
two sides. Enclose and cover it, (conically in 
part,) transport it with your ox-cart or wagon 
from tree to tree, covering them; if it requires 
strength on the open sides, shifting-bars might be 
used, and slight drop-curtains completely enclose 
the tree. Our trees can only be relieved from all 
their maladies by smoking ! particularly the high¬ 
est-priced fruit of the market—the plum. A 
winged beetle pierces the fruit, the grub grows in 
the fruit and it drops, while the tree is remarkably 
healthy. Now to smoke this fruit once or twice, 
you would make the tree and fruit offensive to 
the beetle, and he would go elsewhere to deposite 
his eggs. 
Borer.—(Fig. 9.) 
Male.—(Fig. 10.) Female.—(Fig. 11.) 
I send you cuts of the peach-tree worm, which 
I copy from those furnished the Boston Plowman, 
by Professor Harris, of Cambridge. Fig. 9 rep¬ 
resents the worm or borer; fig. 10 the male, which 
has yellowish wings ; fig. 11 the female. 
The eggs are deposited in the summer near the 
root; the grub destroys the bark. These grubs 
are so well known and described, and their injury 
is so trifling (in comparison with the lice) to the 
peach-tree, that I do not more particularly dwell 
on them ; and I have to express my regret at not 
being able to figure the different descriptions of 
plant lice. I do not find them figured in any Eu¬ 
ropean or American work at my command ; they 
are in fact so small as to make it difficult to do so. 
The plant louse of the rose-bush, known to every¬ 
body, sometimes seen on the peach, is the only 
kind that is particularly known, but it is said the 
others are not very dissimilar. It is not material, 
however, in the application of the remedies recom¬ 
mended for the orchardist, to have a minute knowl¬ 
edge of these small but numerous and destructive 
class of insects. In fact it is believed no insects 
are so numerous. We may thank Providence 
none have so great a number of enemies to keep 
them in check, otherwise the globe would be cov¬ 
ered with them. In addition to numerous insect- 
iverous birds, various bugs, spiders, beetles, and 
wasps, destroy great quantities. And the larvae 
of the lady-birds, and small turtle-back and spotted 
beetle of the bee-like insect, and of golden-eyed 
flies, and small ichneumon fly, exist on them. 
The larvae of these insects are in Europe collected 
and put on plants to destroy the aphides or lice,* 
and they do it most effectually, some of the species 
depositing an egg, which becomes a maggot, in 
their bodies. 
1 Thus fleas have little fleas to bite ’em, 
And so go on ad infinitum .” 
S. S. 
GOOD EFFECTS OF PLASTER. 
A farmer informed me, that in one corner of 
his pasture, near his watering and salt troughs, 
his cows used to drop considerable manure ; they 
were also milked during the summer months in 
the pasture, at and near this spot, so that the land 
of half an acre had became very rich. The grass 
grew large, but nothing would eat it. He gave 
it several dressings with plaster, since which the 
cows have fed it down as close as any other part 
of the pasture. 
I know a gentleman who keeps a select herd of 
Short-Horns near Philadelphia; his pastures are 
small, the feed luxuriant, and he changes them 
often from one to the other, and sends a man every 
day to sprinkle plaster wherever any manure has 
been dropped, and his statement of its efficacy in 
* Just after sending my article to press, I find the follow¬ 
ing account of the increase of the Aphis lanigera, in a late 
work by Professor Owen, on Comparative Anatomy. 
u The Aphis lanigera produces each year ten viviparous 
broods, and one which is oviparous, and each generation 
averages 100 individuals. 
1st generation 1 aphis produces 
2d 100 hundred. 
3d 10,000 ten thousand. 
4th 1,000,000 one million. 
5th 100,000,000 hundred millions. 
6th 10,000,000,000 ten billions 
7th 1,000,000,000,000 one trillion. 
8th 100,000,000,000,000 hundred trillions. 
9th 10,000,000,000,000,000 ten quatrillions. 
10th 1 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 000,000 one quintillion. 
“ If the oviparous generation be added to this you will 
have a thirty times greater result.” 
