I 
DISEASES AND INSECT PESTS. 65 
the life of the apple trees. One of the simplest remedies is to touch 
each white thread or solitary insect with turpentine the moment one is 
seen. This destroys them at once. So will pure spirits of wine. And 
neither of these applications will injure apple trees in a dormant state. 
Train oil also smothers the insects, and destroys and deranges their 
filamentaceous appendages, so as to Tender them harmless if not quite 
destroyed. Tobacco water also destroys them, if applied sufficiently 
strong; as also do solutions of carbolic and sulphuric acids. Benzoline, 
paraffin, petroleum, and other mineral oils also penetrate and kill the 
blight; but these must only be applied to the infected parts, as they 
are apt, when used neat, to blister the bark, and so lay the foundation of 
canker. One of the cheapest and most effective remedies is the am- 
moniacal liquor from the gasworks; but as this varies immensely in 
strength, it is peculiarly dangerous in use without some means of 
testing its power. Of ordinary strength, it may be applied to the 
infected parts only. Reduced with equal or more parts of water, the 
trees may be brushed over with it immediately after the fall of the leaf 
with advantage. At that season the buds are hard, small, and dormant. 
Later on the liquor would penetrate and destroy them. Boiling water is 
also a certain cure, but, of course, must be confined to the pests. 
Smears of almost any kind are also useful, as they smother the in¬ 
sects in. They are generally, however, made nauseous or poisonous, or 
both, so as to give them a compound power. Hence the use of lime, 
cowdung, soot, with tobacco water, sulphur, nux vomica, soda, soap, 
turpentine, grease, oils, &c., as component parts of paints and smears. 
As far as the mechanical action of such kill the pests, adhesive clay or 
cowdung and water made to a thick paste are as effective as any. 
But add tobacco, turps, ammoniacal liquor, oils, soap, soda, to convert 
soot, sulphur, lime, &c., into paint, and the mixture is poisonous as well 
as suffocating. But the great difficulty with all these remedies is to 
apply them all over large or orchard trees, and it must, therefore, be 
confessed that they are more useful in gardens than in orchards. For the 
latter, ^ and also for large trees in gardens, there is no remedy for 
American blight equal fo the cold water cure. Applied with sufficient 
force and frequency, the pest cannot long stand against well-directed 
streams of cold water from the hose of a water main or the distribution 
of a powerful garden engine. This dashes the filaments to atoms, and 
these seem not merely useless ornaments but an essential part of the 
insect’s life. It seems unable to live to any destructive purpose when 
these are washed off or persistently smashed into masses by a powerful 
stream of water. 
For the cure of the blight on the roots water is also the only remedy. 
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