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NO. 2. SOAP-SUDS.

Suds made strong, either with hard or soft soap; the product of the wash-tub; they may be freely and safely applied as above directed, and ashes may be added to strengthen them, if necessary.

ΝΟ. 3. LEY WASH.

1 pound potash or soda.

4 gallons of water.

Dissolve thoroughly, and apply it moderately with a swab or brush at the approach of rain. It destroys eggs and insects. If used for the scale or shell bark-louse, use a hard brush, or a Manilla glove, or swab, or a rubber of the cocoanut husk.

NO. 4. SOFT SOAP WASH.

This is either common soft soap of the stores smeared on to the tree, or laid in its crotches to be washed gradually over it by the rains, or it is this diluted with an equal measure of water, or twice its measure of the tobacco water, No. 6.

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2 pounds whale-oil soap.

15 gallons water, or tobacco water, No. 6.

To be well stirred, and applied with swab, brush, or syringe.

Whale-oil soap is simply an alkaline residuum formed in the process of bleaching common oils, varying in strength according as potash or soda may be used for the purpose. The wash made in the proportions here directed is generally milder, and therefore safer, than No. 3, especially if the latter be made. with potash.

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If the water be poured on when boiling, and it be repeatedly stirred, it may be used when cool.

If cold water is used, let it stand in a vessel for a week before using, stirring it often.

It may be applied in the usual manner, or the plants or young shoots infested with the aphis may be dipped into it for a few moments, and, after draining off, should be thoroughly showered with clear water.

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2 pounds leaf or cut tobacco, or common snuff.

2 pounds potash or soda.

20 gallons of water.

Boil and stir it till reduced to about fifteen gallons. Stir it immediately before using it, and apply it cool with a brush or swab for the destruction of the scale insect.

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Reduce to the consistence of paint with tobacco water No. 6. Apply it with a brush or swab to trees infested with the scale insect or bark louse, and if a hard brush or rubber is used, so much the better.

No. 9. SULPHUR WASH FOR GREEN-HOUSE PLANTS, &c.

1 pound soap.

pound sulphur.

pound Scotch snuff.

1 ounce powdered nux vomica.

3 gallons of water.

Boil and stir it for half an hour; let it cool.

Dip the plant into it for a few moments, or apply the wash with a sponge or brush. Place the plant so that the wash will not drain into the pot, and in fifteen minutes syringe or shower it thoroughly with clear water.

FIELD MICE.

In light warm soils field mice are often very destructive to young fruit-trees by girling them at or near the surface of

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the earth, particularly when the snow lies long upon the ground, or the grass is suffered to grow thickly around the trees, or if they are mulched in the fall, so that nesting-places and materials are furnished.

Digging round the trees in the fall, and keeping them clear, may often prevent the injury. The snow also should be trodden hard around them. If these precautions are not found sufficient, a coat of pitch, or grafting composition No. 3, may be put on for six or eight inches above the ground, and an inch or two below. In cases of great exposure, pieces of lath set on end firmly around the stem, and tied on until spring, will protect them; or rolled tin or thin sheet iron may be sprung around them, which, if carefully dried in spring and put away, will last for years. A good cat or small terrier dog will hunt them pretty effectually, and black snakes are said to catch

them.

If trees are severely injured, or even entirely girdled, they may yet be saved by making three or four clean, smooth cuts across the girdle, just as you would cut to put on a patch budgraft, but broader, and fitting nicely to them corresponding pieces cut from the same or some other tree, as you would cut the bud from its scion; and it will aid you in the operation if a little wood is taken with the bark, so that you can ever so slightly interlock them with a short tongue, as in grafting. Having put on two or more of these, according to the size and necessities of the tree, bind them carefully and firmly, and cover them completely with grafting composition No. 3, and your tree will live.

CHAPTER XX.

Fruits in alphabetical Order, in their Varieties, with Descriptions and Directions for their Culture.

FRUITS.

IN preparing the following selections of the more important fruits, an effort has been made to limit the number of varieties, and yet not exclude any desirable peculiarity belonging to

either class. The lists comprise but fifty kinds of apples, forty of pears, twenty-four of peaches, twenty-five of plums, and sixteen of cherries.

These may appear meagre assortments from the almost innumerable existing varieties, but the wants they will not meet are not likely to be satisfied by the mere multiplication of kinds. Neither, though carefully chosen, are they given with the idea of selections being rigidly confined to them; other kinds of similar character may be substituted for any or all of them, at the pleasure of the cultivator.

ALMOND.

Amygdalus Communis.

Fig. 142.

The almond is a variety of the peach, or, more properly, the peach is an almond improved by cultivation, the almond consisting only of the pit or nut and the skin, which cracks open when ripe.

They are raised and cultivated in all respects as peach-trees, and will generally succeed in a measure where that fruit will ripen, but are best suited with a warm soil and southern climate.

a. A branch in blossom. b.

66 in fruit.

The bitter almond and the peach-pit alike afford prussic acid, but the large sweet almond is an excellent nut, though hard to digest, on which account it should be eaten with raisins.

There are also double-flowering varieties, the dwarf double being a universal favorite, easily increased by offshoots or layers.

Seedlings of the bitter almond are used to some extent in France as stocks for budding peaches on, being thought hardier and more enduring than seedlings of the peach.

APPLES.

The varieties of apples are so numerous and diversified that while it would seem as if all tastes, soils, and localities might be suited, there is, on this very account, some difficulty in making a selection.

In addition, therefore, to the information given in the subjoined lists of kinds, and the suggestions in reference to the selection of fruit, page 192, little aid can be afforded in making choice of varieties.

In general, and particularly to the northward, except for localities within easy reach of a market, it will be found wise to plant the late fall and winter varieties more largely than the earlier kinds, and acid or subacid fruits rather than sweet

ones.

In respect to soil, some varieties will not bear a sandy, and others will not do well upon a clay soil, but almost every variety will succeed upon a moderately deep loam, if the climate of the locality is such as to suit them; and even upon soils comparatively cold and wet, good fruit may be raised if attention is given to carrying off the superabundant water by means of open drains made with the plow. Efficient under-draining will be found still better, and all land having clay or hardpan underneath, upon which the orchard is to be planted, if not under-drained, should first be thoroughly subsoiled or trenchplowed.

In orchard culture, in good soils, apple trees should not stand less than forty feet apart every way. When dwarfed for garden culture or for combination they may be set from ten to twelve feet apart, and should be regularly summer pruned by nipping the ends of the young shoots through the season, and in the winter pruning should be cut back only just enough to preserve the vigor and symmetry of the tree. See Pruning, page 253-4.

Apples have become of late, more than ever, one of the necessaries of life, and every person should, if possible, so arrange the varieties selected as to secure to his family the enjoyment of them throughout the year. This may be accomplished by

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