THE CULTIVATOR. 
347 
DOWNING’S FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES OF 
AMERICA. 
We have already given our opinion on the high 
merits of this work, and have made a few extracts as 
specimens of what it contains, to which we here add a 
few; our readers will however remember that such small 
portions can afford at best but a very inadequate know¬ 
ledge of a well arranged and copiously enriched whole; 
and the book itself must be had by all w r ho would receive 
the benefit of the inexhaustible fund of information it 
contains. 
Much interest has been excited relative to the efficacy 
of salt as a preventive of the curculio. The author’s ex¬ 
perience is given in the following statements: 
“ Insects, the larvae or grubs of which harbor in the 
ground during a certain season, as the curculio or plum 
weevil, are all more or less affected by the application of 
common salt as a top dressing. On a larger scale—in 
farm crops—the ravages of the cut-worm are frequently 
prevented by sowing three bushels of salt to the acre, 
and we have seen it applied to all kinds of fruit grounds 
with equal success. Salt seems to be strongly disagree¬ 
able to nearly all this class of insects, and the grubs per¬ 
ish even where a small quantity has for two or three sea¬ 
sons been applied to the soil. In a neighborhood where 
the peach w r orm usually destroys half the peach trees, 
and where whole crops of the plum are equally a victim 
to the plum weevil, we have seen the former preserved 
in the healthiest condition, by an annual application of 
a small handful of coarse salt about the collar of the tree 
at the surface of the ground; and the latter made to hold 
abundant crops, by a top dressing applied every spring, 
of packing salt at the rate of a quart to the surface occu¬ 
pied by the roots of every full grown tree.” p. 53. 
■“ Common salt we have found one of the best fertilizers 
of the plum tree. It not only greatly promotes its health 
and luxuriance, but from the dislike which most insects 
have to this substance, it drives away or destroys most of 
those to which the plum is liable. The most successful 
plum grower in our neighborhood, applies, with the best 
results, half a peck of coarse salt to the surface of the 
ground under each bearing tree, annually, about the first 
of April.” (p. 266.) Those who have tried salt the pre¬ 
sent season, in the western part of the state, speak 
of its effects as very decidedly beneficial in saving the 
plum crop. 
On the subject of repelling insects by odors , the follow¬ 
ing remarks will doubtless be very useful to many: 
“ In the winged state, most small insects may be either 
driven away by powerful odors, or killed by strong de¬ 
coctions of tobacco, or a wash of diluted whale oil or 
other strong soap. Attention has but recently been call¬ 
ed to the repugnance of all insects, to strong odors, and 
there is but little doubt that before a long time, it will 
lead to the discovery of the means of preventing the at¬ 
tacks of most insects by means of strong-smelling liquids 
or odorous substances. The moths that attack furs, as 
every one knows, are driven away by pepper-corns or 
tobacco, and should future experiments prove that at 
certain seasons, when our trees are most likely to be at¬ 
tacked by insects, we may expel them by hanging bottles 
or rags filled with strong-smelling liquids in our trees, 
it will certainly be a very simple and easy way of ridding 
ourselves of them. The brown scale, a troublesome ene¬ 
my of the orange tree, it is stated in the Gardener’s Chroni¬ 
cle , has been destroyed by hanging plants of the common 
chamomile among its branches. The odor of the coal tar 
of gas works is exceedingly offensive to some insects in¬ 
jurious to fruits, and it has been found to drive away 
the wire worm, and other grubs that attack the roots of 
plants. The vapor of oil of turpentine is fatal to wasps, 
and that of tobacco smoke to the green fly.” (p. 54.) 
te Moths and other insects which fly at night , are destroy¬ 
ed in large numbers by the following mode, first dis¬ 
covered by Victor Adouin, of France. A flat saucer or 
or vessel is placed on the ground, in which is placed a 
light, partially covered with a common bell glass besmear¬ 
ed with oil. All the small moths are directly attracted 
by the light, fly towards it, and in their attempts to get 
at the light, are either caught by the glutinous sides of 
the bell glass, or fall into the basin of oil beneath, and 
in either case soon perish. M. Adouin applied this to 
the destruction of the pyralis, a moth that is very trouble¬ 
some in the French vineyards; with two hundred of 
these lights in a vineyard of four acres, and in a single 
night, 30,000 moths were killed, and found dead on and 
about the vessels. By continuing this process through the 
season, it was estimated that he had destroyed female moths 
sufficient to have produced progeny of over a million of 
caterpillars.” (p. 55.) After recommending, bonfires of 
shavings, and flambeaux of tow dipped in tar, as very effi¬ 
cient modes of destroying the apple-worm moth, and me¬ 
lon-bug, the author remarks, “ A simple and most effectual 
mode of ridding the fruit garden of insects of every de¬ 
scription, which we recommend as a general extirpator, 
is the following. Take a number of common bottles, 
the wider-mouthed the better, and fill them about half 
full of a mixture of water, molasses, and vinegar. Sus¬ 
pend these among the branches of trees, and in vari¬ 
ous parts of the garden. In a fortnight they will be 
found full of dead insects, of every description not too 
large to enter the bottles—-wasps, flies, beetles, slugs, 
grubs, and a great variety of others. The bottles must 
now be emptied, and the liquid renewed. A zealous 
amateur of our acquaintance caught last season in this 
way, more than three bushels of insects of various kinds; 
and what is more satisfactory, preserved his garden al¬ 
most entirely against their attacks in any shape.” 
Some interesting and striking instances are occasion¬ 
ally given of the productiveness of single trees, and of 
the profits of fruit culture :— 
“Although the apple generally forms a tree of medium 
growth, there are many specimens in this country of 
enormous size. Among others we recollect two in the 
grounds of Mr. Hall, of Raynham, Rhode Island, which, 
ten years ago, were 130 years old; the trunk of one of 
these trees then measured, at one foot from the ground, 
thirteen feet two inches, [in circumference,] and the 
other twelve feet two inches. The trees bore that sea¬ 
son about thirty or forty bushels, but in the year 1780 
they together bore one hundred and one bushels of ap¬ 
ples. In Duxbury, Plymouth county, Mass., is a tree 
which in its girth measures twelve feet five inches, and 
which has yielded in a single season, 121-§ bushels.” 
(P. 57.) 
“ There are [pear] trees on record abroad, of great 
size and age for fi'uit trees. M. Bose mentions several 
which are known to be near 400 years old. There is a 
very extraordinary tree in Home Lacy, Herefordshire, 
( England—a peri’y pear—from which were made more 
than once, 15 hogsheads of peri-yin a single year. In 1805 
it covei’ed more than half an acre of land, the branches 
bending down and taking root, and in turn producing 
others in the same way. Loudon, in his recent work on 
trees, says it is still in fine health, though reduced in 
size. 
“ One of the most remarkable pear trees in this coun¬ 
try, is growing in Illinois, about ten miles north of Vin¬ 
cennes. It is not believed to be more than forty years 
old* having been planted by Mrs. Ochletree. The girth 
of its trunk, one foot above the ground, is ten feet, and 
at nine feet from the ground, six and a half feet-, and its 
branches extend over an area sixty-nine feet in diame¬ 
ter. In 1834, it yielded 184 bushels of pears; in 1840, 
it yielded 140 bushels. Another famous specimen, per¬ 
haps the oldest in the country, is the Stuyvesant pear 
tree, originally planted by the old goveimor of the 
Dutch Colony of New-York, more than two hundred years 
ago, and still standing in fine vigor, on what was once 
his farm, but is now the upper part of the city, quite 
thickly covered with houses.”* 
The great profits sometimes derived from the sale of 
fruit of well selected varieties, are evident from a single 
fact in relation to the Frost Gage, a fine late pluxn. 
* This old tree standing at the corner of 3d Avenue, and 13th 
street, is evidently on the decline, as it now appears less vigorous 
than it did a few years ago, hard pavements evidently being less 
favorable than cultivated soil. A few rods from this tree, is a 
cherry tree, also planted by old governor Stuyvesant, now in the 
garden of Robert I. Murray, of 14th-street, which annually yields 
heavy crops.— Ed. 
