March 8. 1890. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
295 
would it be safe to use poison, or Paris green, as it was called 1 Another 
question was as to the evenness of the ground for getting about with a 
vehicle or machine on wheels over, for instance. Asparagus beds ? The 
cost of a machine would also be a great deterrent, except to very 
large fruit growers. His idea of meeting the question of caterpillars 
on his own trees was to watch most carefully in April for their first 
appearance, as a few would doubtless have escaped the deathly bands 
before the application of the latter. He was of opinion that a sudden 
violent shaking would disloge them even in a young state, and to pre¬ 
vent their re-ascent he would apply a little fresh dressing in a thinner 
state than that used for the destruction of the female moth. He was 
more sanguine of the efficacy of this method from having caught 
750 spiders on one band. It would be advisable to repeat the shaking 
process at intervals from the end of October to the end of December. 
He had no fear about the state of the majority of his trees. He had 
neglected a few small ones, which he felt he could go over very easily. 
(Applause.) 
Experiments on Lord Sudelet’s Fruit Farms. 
At the instance of the Chairman, Mr. C. D. Wise then read extracts 
from a paper which he had prepared. He said that in Captain Corbett’s 
absence he was very pleased to give them any information as to the 
methods they adopted at Toddington against the spread of the blight, 
and also as to the success they had met with. In the first place, to 
come to the point at once, he would take the Evesham or winter moth. 
As they all knew, of course, the female moth which laid the eggs was 
wingless, and that it was necessary for her to ascend the stem of the 
tree. One thing they had to decide was the right time to put the bands 
on if they put them on at all, and how long should they be kept sticky 
—should they be put on on the 1st of October or the 1st of November, 
or when ? They found by comparing notes for the past three years at 
Toddington that the bands should not be put on later than the first 
Week in October. In 1888 they commenced banding on October 16th, 
and caught the first moth on October 18th. That was too late, and it 
showed that the moth might be earlier or later according to the season. 
This year they caught the first moth on October 7th. That showed 
that the bands should not be put on later than the first week in October. 
This winter they were catching moths on the bands at Toddington on 
December 16th, and that showed that to catch the first hatch the bands 
should be kept sticky until December 31st. With regard to the grease, 
in 1887 they used a ready-made mixture, and in 1888 they made their 
own stuff, which was composed of 1 gallon of Stockholm tar to 1 cwt. 
of grease, and they also used ordinary cart grease. 
The Trees Damaged. 
They found without doubt that all these mixtures were injurious to 
the young trees, and in fact none of their trees were more than ten 
years old, and many only three or two years, so they determined not to 
use them again. He had found trees alive up to the band and dead 
above it, and he thought that was pretty good proof. 
The Mayor : Does that apply to young trees only ? 
Mr. Wise ; To young trees particularly ; none of ours are more than 
ten years old. There was no doubt that the tar formed a sort of hard 
band round the tree and stopped the flow of the sap, and water-proofed 
the cells. It was also a question whether it would not soak into the 
bark and become distributed in the sap. When the trees had resisted 
the grease he found the bark cracked and peeled off, so that if another 
band were put on in the same place it would no doubt greatly injure the 
tree, if not kill it. If it were put lower down it would be extremely 
dangerous. Then, again, grease was sure to soak into the bark of a 
young tree to a great extent. They had had the grease they used 
analysed, and had as yet been unable to find any which would not 
injure the trees. One they had used was as follows :—“ The grease con¬ 
sists of two oils mixed with water and superphosphate of lime.” The 
tar no doubt did the mischief. Taking all that into consideration they 
determined to put a band of paper on the trees, and the grease on that, 
and he showed specimens. The paper cost about 10s. a cwt. It was 
grease-proof paper, and was procured from Messrs. Adlard & Evans. 
The paper was ready cut to put on the trees, and one ream would do 
247 trees, one sheet would do six trees, and 1 lb. of grease would do six 
trees. The work was chiefly done by women and boys. One woman 
with a basket and a pot of paste wrapped the paper round the tree and 
pasted the lap, and was followed by one who tied a piece of matting 
round the lower end of the band and could also grease it. In this way 
two good women could do 200 trees a day. 
Mr. Hooper asked if the tree had a rough bark, whether the moth 
would not crawl under the paper. 
Mr. Wise replied that the piece of matting tied round the bottom 
of the band prevented that. In Answer to the Mayor he said that he 
thought that in that way grease would be saved. He thought that the 
grease should be removed every three weeks or so, and the bands should 
be kept sticky at least up till Christmas. He found a moth on Decem¬ 
ber 17th last year. Now they came to the question as to how, having 
taken all that trouble, they found caterpillars in the spring. One way 
in which they were beaten was that the male moth carried the female 
up into the trees, and deposited her in the branches. Miss Ormerod 
thought this was done more than was generally supposed. Another 
point to consider was. Were the eggs laid in stems of the trees below 
the grease band fertile ? He found some eggs last spring, and they sent 
some to Miss Ormerod, and asked whether they were fertile, and in her 
reply she said the eggs appeared alive in many instances, and in one she 
iound the indication of the segment of a caterpillar, and from that she 
thought they might consider a sufficient quantity of eggs was alive and 
needed looking after. She recommended a second application of grease 
bands or dressing the trees with softsoap, &c. He considered that from 
continual greasing the moth was decreasing. In consequence of what- 
Miss Ormerod said they got some hard scrubbing brushes, and scrubbed 
each tree with a mixture of tempered clay, soot, lime, cowdung, and 
water, and they would do the same again in the spring. Not only did 
it destroy the eggs, but it had a beneficial effect on the trees in cleaning 
the bark. Mr. Fletcher, the Dominion Entomologist of Canada, in ar- 
letter to Capt. Corbett, recommended kerosene emulsion to be applied 
at the end of March. The emulsion should be made of various strengths 
according to the age of the trees. The following was the ordinary 
strength :—One pint of kerosene (or refined coal oil), half ounce of 
common soap, half pint of rain water; the soap to be boiled in th& 
water till all was dissolved, and the kerosene to be churned up in it. If 
these were used for spraying they must add nine times the quantity 
of water. They found that in pruning young trees a great quantity 
of eggs were destroyed, but the prunings should not be left about th& 
gardens, or else the eggs would hatch. They took them all away and 
burnt them. They then came to the question of greasing in the spring 
to catch late comers. Last year they greased on March 2nd in case any 
caterpillars should hatch in the Currant bushes, and find their way up- 
the Plum trees, but they caught very few. He did not think it paid 
to do, but should be glad to hear some practical opinion on the point. 
No More Shaking. 
As regarded the caterpillar when it hatched, supposing they had not 
greased, and their trees were covered with them, what was to be done t 
Shaking was not much good if they had bush fruits under. They tried 
that in a plantation that was badly attacked, but they shook them on to 
a sheet and caught thousands, and they shook them on to the Black 
Currants, and they attacked them, and they even tackled the Straw¬ 
berries. If there were grass underneath the trees, shaking might be 
useful. 
Mr. Lunn asked if those trees had been greased ? 
Mr. Wise replied that he was speaking of three years ago. 
Mr. Harvey Hunt asked whether the caterpillars came in the shape 
of blight on the wing ? 
Mr. Wise : No, certainly not. The only way in which the wind 
affects the growth is that it hatches them more quickly sometimes- 
Proceeding, he said the caterpillar immediately on hatching ate its way 
into the nearest bud, and there remained until the bud opened, by which; 
time it had grown considerably. The time to kill by washing was when 
it first hatched, but the difficulty was to catch it at the right moment. 
What they wanted was a wash that would kill it after the leaves wer& 
out. They had tried everything they could think of. They had tried 
paraffin and softsoap, but with paraffin care was necessary. They used 
one pint to three gallons of water as an experiment, and killed 
the tree, but he thought the reason the tree was killed was because the 
paraffin was not properly mixed with the water. No doubt several 
solutions would kill the caterpillar if they could get at it. They had 
tried two ounces of softsoap boiled in one gallon of water, and a 
quarter of a pint of paraffin added, and they found that if they held a 
branch in it the caterpillars were killed, but syringing a tree with it did 
very little good apparently. Common soda was tried, first fourteea 
ounces to three gallons of water. This killed the caterpillars, but 
shrivelled up all the leaves and fruit. Then they tried eight ounces to 
three gallons of water, which slightly burnt the foliage but did not kill 
the caterpillars. But then the caterpillars were nearly full grown, and 
what the result would have been had it been tried before he could not 
say. They had also tried other things. Mr. Fletcher had written & 
letter to Captain Corbett, in which he stated that he was under the im¬ 
pression that the most satisfactory mode of treatment would be to spray 
about the tree with some preparation of arsenic. For his part he pre¬ 
ferred Paris green as being the most uniform in quality. ’ The chief thing 
to be guarded against was getting the liquid too strong. He went on to- 
express his opinion that the only successful treatment was spraying oii 
the trees just when the caterpillar was hatched. Fumigation was also 
recommended. Mr. Wise mentioned that last spring they were burning 
a road through one of the largest plantations, and there they had a very 
large crop of fruit indeed. He did not know whether the smoke had 
anything to do with it. 
Mr. T. W. Beach believed it had a great deal to do with it. A. 
number of small fires in a plantation did a great deal of good. Mrs. 
Wallace always made a point of burning all refuse during the time the- 
trees were in flower. 
Use of Paris Green. 
Mr. Wise, continuing, said spraying should, he thought, be done- 
between the 14th and 30th of April, and if done then he did not think 
any fear need be occasioned by the use of Paris green where they had 
Currants, Raspberries, Gooseberries, or Strawberries, as these fruits 
would not have advanced enough to be contaminated, but in the case of 
vegetables it was a different matter. Miss Ormerod had given him some- 
valuable information as regarded Paris green. She said that from 
2 to 4 ozs. in forty gallons of water was recommended for the Looper or 
Codlin Moth caterpillar. That was about the same quantity recom¬ 
mended by Mr. Fletcher. She pointed out that the proportion of 
arsenic would be so'minute (only about 1 oz. in forty gallons of water) 
to an area of about an acre of flat leafage that it seemed to her impos¬ 
sible that any ill results could arise from the poisonous nature of the 
application to human health. He thought they should give that a trials 
