(BAY 49 
332 
THE RUBAI. REW-YORKEB. 
with mtxch of our stock this cross promises 
greater improvement than any other now 
available. I cannot better express the views 
of those who advocate this cross than by quot¬ 
ing the language and arguments of letters 
that I have lately received from well known 
farmers of the county. 
“I prefer the Percheron. He has weight, is 
compactly made, is well on bis legs, has excel¬ 
lent feet, has great staying power, is a fair 
traveler, a good walker, is tractable and good- 
natured and keeps his flesh. The mania for 
trotting stock has filled the country with 
snail horses just fast enough to get beaten, 
and good for little else. It is easy to sell a 
well made borse weighing 1,100 or 1,200 
pounds; but the county is full of those weigh¬ 
ing from 700 to 900 pounds that no one w ants.” 
This gentleman has a mare weighing just 900 
pounds. He has raised three colts from her, 
using a Percheron sire weighing 1,400 pounds. 
Each of these colts took a first premium at our 
fair last fall. The one coming three will now 
weigh 1,100 pounds and is a good salable colt. 
Another well known farmer writes: 
“Most assuredly I approve of the Percheron 
horse. I have a mare weighing 900 pounds, 
and have just sold her colt weighing 1,110 
pounds, two years and seven months old, for 
8150. The sire weighed 1,600 pounds.” The colt 
was a good one. Theory will not prevail against 
such arguments as those above given. With 
a larger mare used, the result may be a horse 
too heavy to suit our farm demand, but a 
horse of this sort, if well made and sound, is 
of more value for other purposes. I have not 
raised any Percheron stock myself, but now I 
have two excellent mares weighing about 
1,260 pounds each, in foal by an imported 
horse of this breed, and I confidently expect 
good results, even if the progeny are too 
heavy for farm use. 
I think that a majority of our horsemen do 
not approve of breeding from these large and 
heavy-limbed sires. A very competent judge 
and breeder writes as follows: “Under no cir¬ 
cumstances would I favor a Percheron horse 
for Lewis County,” and this corresponds with 
the views expressed by many with whom I 
have conversed. The best argument made by 
this gentleman is the sale of a colt for nearly 
8100 advance on the price obtained for the 
Percheron above stated, but the sire used was 
a Cleveland Bay owned far beyond the limits 
of our county. This breed is well spoken of 
by those acquainted with it, aud will, I 
think, receive more attention in the future. 
The farm horse should be home-bred, and 
home-trained. The intelligent, well-educated 
horse values his home and appreciates the 
kindness of his owner, aud by language un¬ 
mistakable, if not vocal, signifies his wish to 
be useful. 
Lewis Co., N. Y. 
INSECTICIDE NOTES. 
We have not attempted, in this issue, to 
give anything like a systematic treatise on 
entomology. The first object has been to call 
renewed attention to the use of the arsenical 
solutions in the apple orchard. This is a mat¬ 
ter of great importance, and we hope our 
notes will have the effect of stirring up in¬ 
creased interest in it. There appear to be 
some half a dozen reliable insecticides that are 
in general use. We refer more particularly 
to those which can be made at home. If a 
farmer can mix Paris-green with plaster or 
with water or make his own kerosene emul¬ 
sion or tobacco tea, there is no reason why he 
should not save the manufacturer’s profit. It 
is not probable that any of the patented in¬ 
secticides contain any of the poisonous ele¬ 
ments that the farmer cannot buy and mix at 
a cost far below the dealers’ prices. There¬ 
fore we have said more about home-made in¬ 
secticides than we otherwise should have 
done. For a list of the more common insecti¬ 
cides perhaps we cannot do better than to 
refer the reader to the first paragraph of Prof. 
Cook’s article on this page. 
The battle is but half won against our insect 
enemies when the insecticides are decided 
upon. There is as much knowledge requii’ed 
in using weapons as in selecting them. Prof. 
Fernald tells the story of a farmer who was 
accustomed to employ a boy to climb his 
apple trees and destroy the tent caterpillars as 
soon as they appeared; but he was obliged to 
send the boy several times, as new tents were 
found after the destruction of the old ones, 
and he was unable to understand the reason, 
until his little girl, who had undertaken to 
raise a colony in the house for her own amuse¬ 
ment, discovered that the caterpillars left the 
tent and went out to feed only in the middle 
of the forenoon, and again in the middle of 
the afternoon. Her father took the hint, and 
sent the boy to destroy the caterpillars only 
in the morning or late in the afternoon, and 
then the work was effectual, for the cater¬ 
pillars were all in the nest when the boy crush¬ 
ed them. 
This illustrates the point we desire to make, 
viz.: that the surest way to combat an insect 
is to understand its habits. These habits are 
fixed and if we know what the insect is going 
to do at a certain season, we can head it off 
with preventive measures. While the habits 
of a species of insects are fixed, different spe¬ 
cies have different habits. Borne eat the leaves, 
others bore into the bark, and others attack 
the roots below ground. Some work at night, 
others during the day. Some do not eat the 
leaves at all,but bore in through the epidermis 
and suck out the sap. Thus we see how abso¬ 
lutely important it is that the insect fighter 
should know what his enemy does, and where 
he can be met and fought. Just as a man can 
treat his sick horses and cattle far more intel¬ 
ligently when he knows what causes the dis¬ 
ease, a farmer can use insecticides with great¬ 
er efficiency when he knows the habits of the 
insects he desires to destroy. 
It seems hardly necessary to tell intelligent 
men that substances which will destroy hu¬ 
man life when taken in small quantities should 
be handled with the greatest care. Every 
child should be given to understand the dead¬ 
ly nature of the substance, and a place should 
be provided for its keeping that will render it 
impossible for stock to reach it. The man 
who would not use care in the handling and 
use of deadly poisons should not be permitted 
to use them at all. 
quantity to four ounces, and now i think three 
ounces are plenty. If too much is Used it will 
injure the foliage of the trees seriously, there¬ 
fore care must be observed. 
Geneva, N. Y. s. d. willard. 
ARSENICAL SOLUTIONS IN ORCHARDS. 
We believe it was Mr. J. S. Woodward who 
first publicly advised the spraying of apple 
trees with the arsenical solutions. The discov¬ 
ery of this method of fighting the coddling 
moth ranks, in its importance to the apple 
grower, with the development of the silo or 
corn thrashing to the general farmer. 
It is safe to say that fully 50 per cent of the 
possible apple crop is destroyed each year by 
the coddling moth, where no precautions are 
taken for fighting the insect. We consider it 
safe to say that could a careful application of 
the arsenical poisons be used, this loss would 
be reduced to 20 per cent. We have had 
much to say about this matter, but farmers 
are slow, in some instances, to take hold of it. 
The work comes at a time when other farm 
operations are pressing, many farmers do not 
depend upon their apple crop for any consid¬ 
erable part of their income, and there is a 
deep-rooted objection to using poisons directly 
upon any fruit or vegetable that may be 
eaten without washing or cooking. Those 
who make a business of apple-growing have 
been quick to take advantage of these means of 
fighting a deadly enemy. In fact they have 
been forced into it in order to keep up with 
the times. It is absolutely necessary to use 
care in handling poisons of any kind. That 
fact must always be distinctly understood, 
but the statement, frequently made, that the 
use of these dilute solutions of the arsenites is 
necessarily dangerous, is little short of folly. 
The following facts speak for themselves, yet 
it may not be out of place to call attention to 
a few points of particular interest. A too 
strong solution will scorch the foliage. It is 
better to put on more of a weak solution than 
to try and economize in water. The spraying 
must be done just after the blossoms fall and 
the fruit begins to set. The moth deposits her 
egg at the calyx or blossom end of the fruit 
and the poison must reach this point in order 
to be effective. When the apple hangs over, 
as it does when heavy enough to bend the 
stem, there is small chance of reaching the 
seat of danger. The solution must be thrown 
with force and in the form of a fine spray; and 
the tree must be well wet in every part. 
PARIS-GREEN FOR THE CODDLING MOTII. 
I use three ounces of Paris-green to 40 gal¬ 
lons of water. The water is placed in a cask, 
which is fastened in a wagon, and on top is a 
Field force pump, connected with which are 20 
feet of hose. A square hole is cut in the top of 
the cask, through which the water and Paris- 
green are put, and a stick is inserted to keep 
the Paris-green well mixed. We spray the trees 
soon after the young apples are formed. We 
can go over 300 to 400 trees per day, much de¬ 
pending on the size of the trees. 
We save the crop, or all there should be 
saved, for the good of the trees, and to insure 
a good quality of fruit. There is as little 
profit in over-cropping the trees as in raising 
small fruit. 
After an experience of five years I can see 
no danger in the use of this insecticide. It 
will pay any one with half a dozen trees to use 
it. Many who have noticed my fruit express 
surprise that I should have my trees so loaded 
with fine fruit while others in the same vicin¬ 
ity are quite imperfect. Formerly I used five 
ounces of Paris-green; then I reduced the 
INSECTICIDES IN NEW YORK. 
I usEb one-fourth of a pound of Paris green 
in 40 gallons of water and sprayed about 150 
trees twice over the first time just when the ap¬ 
ples were forming (or when they were about as 
large as peas), and then again in about 10days; 
80 of our trees that we sprayed are 16 years 
old. These were all Greenings, from which we 
got 301 barrels of fine apples. Every one that 
saw the orchard said they never saw such a 
sight, so many apples on such young trees. One 
or two of them bore seven barrels of apples 
each. Besides these, we sprayed 40 trees 
about 30 years old, from which we picked 500 
barrels—12% barrels to the tree, on an average. 
From about 35 old trees that were sprayed we 
got 190 barrels of apples. Total, 990 barrels 
from sprayed trees. We have in all about 
1,000 trees, of which 160 were sprayed. We 
got only 300 barrels from 840 trees which 
were not sprayed; but of course,* we 
did not expect so many from these. They 
did not bloom as fully as the rest; in fact, a 
great many of them had no blossoms at all. 
Among tbe sprayed trees we found a few 
wormy apples, but they were scarce; but un¬ 
der those trees that were not sprayed we could 
find many wormy ones. There were more 
wormy apples among five barrels taken from 
trees that were not sprayed than in 50 barrels 
that were picked from the sprayed trees. Any 
one could tell where we sprayed and where 
not by walking through the orchard and 
looking at the apples that were on the ground. 
The hogs even knew "where we had sprayed; 
they did no rooting where we had done so. 
Hall’s Corners, N. Y. t. b. wilson. 
INSECTICIDES IN OHIO. 
In the spring of 1887 I procured a Nixor 
sprayer and poisons, resolved to give the usi 
of arsenites as a remedy for the coddling 
moth worm a thorough trial. I made two set.' 
of experiments, one with Paris-green, the 
other with London-purple; in all other re 
spects they were equal. I used them of three 
different strengths—one pound to 50; one 
pound to 75, and one pound to 100 gallons of 
water. Three trees for each strength were 
selected, making 18 in all, nine for the “green,’' 
nine for the “purple.” The varieties were 
Baldwin, King and Talman. The trees were 
in full bloom on May 15; on the morning of 
the 22d I gave the first application. The wa¬ 
ter had scarcely dried upon the trees when a 
shower fell, aud was soon followed by a sec¬ 
ond, and it rained again on the 24ih. Think¬ 
ing these rains might have washed out the 
poison, a second application was given on the 
26th. Rain fell on that afternoon, and a 
large amount fell during tbe week ending 
June 4th. By this time I thought the apples 
too large to repeat the spraying. On May 25th 
I examined tbe calyx of the fruit, aud found 
from one to six little worms in about nine out 
of the 10 specimens examined. They were 
quite lively, and had not eaten or entered the 
apple, as far as I could discern.' I examined 
the apples up to the 30th; at that time I found 
an occasional one. When the apples were 
about one-third grown I could see the spray¬ 
ing had had a good effect. 
At harvest time we gathered the first fair 
apples ever taken from this orchard, 20 years 
set. There were a few wormy ones, but not 
enough to mention. A tree of Baldwins stand¬ 
ing near was not sprayed. I think the apples 
on this were all wormy, at least they dropped 
off before they should. Three trees not in tbe 
test number were sprayed only the first time. 
The apples on these were about half of them 
wormy. In my judgment the second appli¬ 
cation was a benefit under the circumstances, 
and possibly ic would be best every time. So 
far as I could see, the strength of one pound 
to 100 gallons was as effectual as the stronger 
ones, and I even think it might be still further 
reduced, perhaps one pound to 200 gallons 
would be found sufficiently strong. The last 
tree sprayed got some of the sediment from 
the tank,which burned the foliage quite badly. 
With the small machine used, it took two 
men about five minutes per tree, and about 2% 
gallons of water were used. The spray was 
applied through and over the tree until tbe 
foliage dripped. I had never gathered fair 
apples from this orchaid before, and it is a 
great delight to go to the cellar, take an apple 
up and eat it, core and all, and feel that you 
are not eating worms. Nearly all I eat are 
not pared, and I stand a living testimony as 
to the harmlessness of the poison as applied to 
apples. e. h. 
Euclid, Ohio. 
EXPERIENCE IN VERMONT. 
We sprayed last spring for the first time, 
although it has been done on a small scale in 
this section before with good success. As re¬ 
gards the proportion of “green” to water, 
that would depend on the quality of the Paris- 
green. We use Reynold’s pure Paris-green; 
buying it by the hundred-weight. There are 
many ways of mixing. We put from two to 
three tablespooufuls to 40 or 45 gallons of 
water, putting the green directly into the bar¬ 
rel of water, using a small dasher for mixing. 
Our barrels have a small hole cut in one side 1 
of the head. The four sides are on a bevel, so 
that the piece makes a good stopper and will 
not fall in. The motion of the wagon will 
usually keep the contents of the barrel mixed 
enough at the start; but it is well enough to 1 
stir the latter half up a little. The first spray¬ 
ing should be done when the fruit is about the 
size of a bean, or just after the blow has fallen;,, 
and from then until the apple turns down.. 
Usually two or three sprayings may be given 
in this time. 
Should a heavy rain come on, the poison 
will be washed off, and it will be necessary to 
go over the trees again. On the days for 
spraying there should be little or no wind.. 
We use in our orchard two of the Farmer’s; 
Force Pump. They are cheap and durable,, 
made of cast-iron and weighing about 40 
pounds each. The whole outfit costs from 87 
to 810, according to capacity of pump. I 
prefer the No. 1 pump, with a three-inch cyl¬ 
inder and three-fourth inch hose with brass, 
nozzle. 
My way of getting through the orchard iff 
this: I fill four or six barrels with water, put 
in the Paris-green, take them on a wagon with 1 
five men—one to do the driving, two to work 
the pumps and two to hold the hose. By sc 
doing we are able to spray on each side of the; 
wagon: at the same time the team keeps mov¬ 
ing at a slow walk. We stop only to change' 
the pumps from one barrel to another as each 
becomes empty. I have 5,000 apple trees in 
my orchard, besides pears and plums. It will 
average about a gallon of the mixture to a 
tree, and when we get over from 1,200 to 1,500' 
a day we think we have done enough—at least 
the men who work the pumps think so. The’ 
greatest part of the work consists in getting, 
the water to the orchard. 
Last spring being my first experience, 1 
thought to give it a thorough test by leaving, 
parts of the orchard unsprayed. Although 
the crop was very light last season, yet I could 
see a great difference in the quality of the fruit.. 
Care should be taken about turning in stock 
too soon after spraying, as one is quite apt to> 
slop a quantity of the mixture in one place;: 
still we let a drove of hogs run in our orchard: 
while we were spraying. I think spraying, 
the trees pays in other ways besides destroy¬ 
ing the coddling moth. 
My orchard never was so free from caterpil¬ 
lars and other worms as it was after we 
sprayed it. No fruit-grower can afford to be 
without some means of using Paris-green ini 
his orchard. I used our pumps in our potato' 
field, putting a barrel of water in a one-horse 1 
cart. A man and boy can get over six or 
seven acres a day, and do the work well. I 
could reach eight rows on a side, and the two 
underneath can be sprayed while the horse is 
walking up a few steps. 
The pump will throw a spray over any 
apple tree, and drive it through the middle 
with such force as to reach the other side. I 
prefer to make the mixture as weak as it will 
do, and then use plenty of it. 
Charlotte, Vermont. w. h. holmes. 
THE MOST USEFUL INSECTICIDES. 
PROF. A. J. COOK. 
I have found these are the arsenites, Lon¬ 
don-purple and Paris-green; the kerosene aud 
soap mixture (one pint of kerosene aud one 
quart of soft soap, or one half pound of whale 
oil soap, stirred thoroughly till permanently 
mixed; then add water so as to make the kei o- 
sene one part to 15 of water), and pyrethrum. 
This can be used as a powder; one pint to 20 - 
of flour, or one tablespoouful may be mixed 
with two gallons of water. In the last case,, 
it should be thrown on the plants with violence 
so as to touch all the insects. White hellebore 
is a valuable insecticide, especially in fighting 
currant slugs. Whale oil soap is a good speci¬ 
fic in fighting many insects, like plant lice, 
rose slugs, etc. Tobacco smoke, for plant lice, 
and tobacco decoction are admirable to de¬ 
stroy vermin on domestic animals, like lice 
and ticks. Bisulphide of carbon is valuable 
for destroying grain insects in the bin. Per¬ 
haps the most generally useful remedy against 
insects destructive to plants is good culture 
and a generous use of that best fertilizer— 
barn yard manure. 
I should advise l ome-made insecticides or 
rather well known insecticides in all cases. 
The put-up patented insecticides are usually 
some well known insecticide like arsenic, with 
plaster, etc., ad infinitum. Such substances 
are sold at an immense profit. 
