The Portland daily press., 1875-08-16
Poisons for Insects,

We are learning more each successive year
how to treat destructive insects. New reme-
dies, and how and where to apply them, are
becoming better understood. One of the
most successful in the form of poisons, is the
application of white hellebore to currant
bushes for the destruction of the currant
worms. These insects, if uncontrolled, in
crease with surprising rapidity, and many
bushes, when unprotected, have been sue
cessfully divested of their foliage until they
have persisted root and branch. We have
used the white hellebore with perfect success
for sixteen years, and have never failed in Sc
curing full masses of foliage with p,enteous
crops of fruit. The expense is trifing; the
time required in applying it is only few
hours annually, in garden afording an
abundant family supply. Very prompt appli-
are familiar with this remedy; but there are
Others who know little about it, and still
make the inquiry if there is ''any way to save
our currants." The currant and gooseberry
have special fitness for the application of
this poison, the fruit being smooth and glossy,
from the surface of which the rains thorough
~ wash the hellebore during the many weeks
which elapse between the usual season of the
insects and the ripening Of the fruit.
The great success attending its use for the
currant and gooseberry, and the equally great
success, on much larger scale in the use of
Paris green for the Colorado potato beetle,
has suggested the use of this deadly poison
for the canker worm on the apple-an insect
of slow travel, but of very secure Judgment and
destructive effect when it once gets possession
OF orchards. The mixture with water, in the
proportion of about one part of Paris with
five hundred times its bulk of water, so sue
cessiully used on the potato plant, has been
thrown, by small garden engine set in spring
wagon, among the branches of the apnle trees,
early in the season while the fruit is quite
small, and il has speedily destroyed the canker
worms. There is some reason to fear, how
ever, that this remedy may NOT be entirely
safe. The blossom end OF the young apple
has a cavity which may retain the Paris green
on its interior downy surface, where rains
will not wash it off, at the same time that it
is more deadly poison than the white helle-
bore sprinkled on the currants. When used
on the potato, it only reaches the leaves and
not the roots. This subject should be care
fully examined.
A poison which may be used to great
advantage on one plant may be entirely
unsulled 10 another. The white hellebore,
for instance, which is sometimes recommend
ed lor tne insects which eat the leaves of the
rose, would be inhaled by apv one attemnt.
ing to smell the flowers.
More common and less virulent remedies
may be used for other garden insects SIuos
may be driven off by briskly busting the
leaves on which they are at work, with dry
dust from the soil; or airslacked lime or
wood ashes may be used in the morning. or
caustic lime Stacked into fine, dry powder
using care that it does not come in contact
with the hands or eyes. Tobacco, either in
strong decoction, or in smoke, may be sue
eessfully used for thrips, plant lice or other
small insects. The fumes of burning sui
phur will destroy many insects, but care