The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1882-01-14

the paper may be furnished for perusal by its
members. II is proposed to make the paper a
welcome visitor to the home of every member of
the Order, and the Rural Topics column will, if
possible, be kept up to the progressive plane of
other departments of the paper.
PYRETBRUM As AN INSECTICIDE concluded !.
). The Tea or DecoGiOn.-Professor E. w. Hill
gard of Berkeley, Cal, is the only one who has
experimental with Pyrethrum in this form,
and expresses himself most favorably as to the
result. He says:
u think, from my experiments, that the tea or
iafusiOn prepared from the .fopers (which need
not be ground up for the purpose) is the most
convenient and eficacious form of using this in
secticide in the open air; provided that it is
used at times ,chen the ,rdter gU not corporate too
rapidly, and that it is applied, not by pouring
over in a stream, or in drops, but in the form
Of a spray from a syringe with fine holes in its
rose. In this case, the fluid will reach the insect
despite of its understanding surfaces, hair, etc.
and stay long enough to kill Thus applied, l
found it to be efficient even against the armored
scale-bug Of the orange and lemon which fall off
IN the course Of two three days after the appI-
cation, while the young brood is almost instantly
destroyed. As the flower tea, unlike whale soap
and other washes, leaves the leaves perfectly
clean, and does not njure even The most tender
growth, it is preferable on that score alone: and
in the future it can hardly fail also to be the
cheaper of the two. This is the more likely, as
the tea made of the leaves and stems has similar,
although considerably weaker effects; and if the
farmer or fruit grower were to grow the plants he
would save all the expense ofharvesting and grind
ing the fower-heads, by simply using the header,
curing the upper stems, leaves, and fower-heads
altogether, as he would hops making the tea of
this material by the hogshead, and distributing
it from cart through syringe. 1t should be
diligently kept in mind, that the least amount of
boiling will seriously injure the strength of this
tea, which should be made with briskly boiling
water, but then simply covered over closely so as
TO allow of as little evaporation as possible The
details of its most economical and effectual use
On the large scale remains, OF course to be work
ed out by practice"
The method OF applying Pyrethrum in either
of the three aforementioned forms is evidently
far more economical in the open field and on a
large scale than the application of the dry pow
der, and, moreover, gives us more chance of reach
ing every insect living upon the plant to which
the fluid is applied. The relative merits of the
three methods can be established only by future
experimenting. c. Y. Riley.
EXPERIMENTS WITH PYRETHRUM-We find
in a late issue of the american Wine and Crane
Grouer, paper by Prot. A. J. Cook, recording
some experiments in destroying insects with the
California Pyrethrum powder, or Buhach, from
which the following extract is taken.
II mixed the powder with -four, one part to
twenty and found that it was still potent to kill.
] also mixed it one tablespoonful to two gallons
of water and found it still better than when ap-
piled in the dry FORM its application being more
perfect; actual contact of the powder with the
insect is all important, quantity seems not to
matter so much. / found it efficient in destroy
ing the Larvae and images Of the Colorado potato
beetles the caterpllars of the cabbage butterfly,
plant-ice, house-fies, and mosquitoes, and only
found it to fail land the failure here was only
partiaD IN the case Of squash-bugs.
In the case Of the potato-beetles and cabbage
caterpillers, ! found it equally effective to
destroy them whether applied while they were |