The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-10-12
Blight May be Eradicated With
Borax Water.
SO CAN THE LITTLE LADY BIRDS.
A Specimen Tree That Has Been Plncked
From the Dying-Larvae Suck the Sub
stance From the Trees-A New Theory of
Tree Culture Discovery OF Cocoanut Worm.

An advertisement in this paper the
other day called attention of planters to
the fact that the blight may be re-
moved from trees of nearly every kind
of tree infested by it on the islands
without the help of the lady bird.
The adj was inserted by ]. D. Wicke,
the welI-known cabinet maker on Ala
kea street, and while his plan may not
be endorsed by the scientist, or even
the coffee growers, it at least has the
stamp of originality about it. A re-
porter for the Advertiser called on Mr..
Wicke Friday for the purpose of
learning if possible what Mr.. Wicke's
plan is: In this the reporter was sue
cessful, and more too, he learned that
Mr. Wicke was willing to give his in
formation to the planters without mon
ey and without price.
After he had ascertained that the
reporter was neither coffee man or a
Psychologist Mr.. Wicke led the repor-
ter to door leading to an alley sep
arating his shop from the Y NJ. c. A
building and pointed to a koa bush
we'll leaved and fairly we'll covered
with the mealy bug. Ants were play
fully running in zigZag trails up and
donw the tree stock and incidentally
and there was the larvae of the lady
bird, some of them just merging into
the crawling state while others were
in the earliest stage. Pointing to
these Mr. Wicke said:
The information 1 have was obtain
ed by close observation of this tree
which was perfectly green and healthy
before the lady birds deposited their
larvae there. After they We're there
for a few weeks the leaves began to
it would die At that time it was
quite full of this cottony substance.
After ten days of close watch 1 decided
that the cause of the bush dying was
the fact that the lady bird larvae suck
ed the substance from the tree and
sickend it,
Il have an abiding faith in borax,
just plain boraX, because [ have ac-
complished some wonderful cures with
it and I believed the use of it diluted
in water was the remedy and 1 tried
it. Where you see the tree green and
f1ourishing 1 scraped off the lady bird
larvae and washed the branches with
bOraX water"
But why did you not wait and see if
the lady bird would not remain and
clean off the blight?
Because 1 do not belive the lady
birds will eat each other; and the minute
these lady birds Or the crawling things
exchange their legs for wings they fit
away. And even if they remained
there's no fear Of their eating up their
young and the young of the lady bird
is what is destroying the trees of the
islands,
When it was suggested that the lady
birds has been brought here at con-
siderable expense and had rid the coun-
try of certain characters of blight Mr..
Wicke said:
Z am not a scientific man and 1 am
glad of it for l might be persuaded to
let these miserable things remain;
they may eat up some blight, but there
are others they will not eat, they sim
ply live on the sap of the tree until
they are old enough to fly away and
start blighting another tree.
This discovery of mine is of no
value to me except for the pleasure it
gives me to know that man who fol-
lows my advice will have strong healthy
trees if the ground is healthy, Of course
if the ground is played out he will have
to use fertilizer"
Then you would recommend what,
Mr. Wicke?
Simply this he replied, when you
notice a scale like this appearing on
your tree scrape it off and wash the
tree in a solution of borax and the
blight will never appear again"
But you must consider, Mr.. Wicke,
that on some plantations there are
more than thousand trees to an acre
and some planters have seventy or
eighty acres planted. Would you rec
ommend a borax bath to each individu-
al tree?
Certainly, wherever these lady birds
are just coming into their final shape;
the expense is nothing considering the
result. \ Japanses laborer, or any
numbey of them, could go round with
stiff brush and pail Of the solution
and wash the trees in no time. If the
planter wishes, he can adopt the lady
bird plan and take chances on losing
his trees.
From my experience in the use of