CURE FOR THE CODLIN MOTH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1515, 24 March 1887, Page 3

CURE FOR THE CODLIN MOTH.

At a meeting of fruit-growera at Wanganui, Mr Bennefield read the following interesting paper on the above subject :— Profossor Cook prefers London purple to Paris Green because it k cheaper and easier to mix m tho water. The mixture la one ponnd of powder to DO gallons of water. For a few trees uee a bucket and a syringe, always keeping the liquid well Btirred. One common bucket of tho liquid will suffice for the largest tree. A teaspoonful of the poison is enough for a bucketful of water. For a large orchard common barrels should be used, drawn m a waggon. I prefer, says Professor Ocok, to have a bnrrol stand on end with a clo'e move ibid fl)at with two holes through It, ono for the pipe or hose from the pump and the other for a Btirrer In Borne of the largest orchards a force pomp is fttifched to the barrel. In Western New York I saw the handle of the pamp attached to the waggon wheel, so that r,o hand power was required only ti drive the horse and guide the pipe or h >B 3 which carles tho epray to the trees. Tho moat important thing is to scatter tha *pr»y on all the fliwera or frait if formed and fc) got as litle on aa possible. Tho iarvn is killed, by eating the poison, and I fhd that the faintest trace is suflijient for the purpose. Again, the poison should be applied oarly hi the season, by the time the fruit is -the size cf a small pea, and I have found one application at this stage to work wonders. There is no donbt but that the first application followed by ore or two others at intervals of two or three weeke would be more thorough ; yet I have found one application made early ao effaotive that I have wondered whether it Is necessary to make more than one application. In May or June the calyx of the apple is up, and so the poison is retained sufficiently long to kill most or all of tho insects, The months will of oourse be reversed here to November or December. The danger from this practice has proved to be nothing at all. Microscopical and chemical analyses have both ehown that all the poison has been removed before we wish to eat the fruit. The wind ne well as tbe rain helps to effeci this removal, as I have found by putting tha poison on plants sheltered from all rains. Of course it would not do to turn stock into the orchard till a heavy rain bad washed the poison from all herbage under the trees Spraying once a week fcr a month, beginning just as the trees bngin to shed their blossoms, will cure the worst orobard that grows, not only of the C >d!in moth, but also of tbe caterpillar and other poets. Its uee has such a marked effect that where one aide of a tree has been sprayed and the other side left at an experiment, the sprayed aide bore sound apples, and the other side wormy ones. Now, gentlemen, it seems to me that thte cure of Professor Cook's is very effective In killing the larva, bat there is one great obstacle againßt it and tint is we could not let ducks or fonlß into the orchard or stock of any kind without a great risk of their being poisoned ; and I consider that duoks and fowls are cur best friends m the orchards. So while not losing s'ght of His cure, I think it our duty to tiy and 6nd a more eufecure for tha Ondlin moth. I thluk that if everyone who has got the moth m the orchard would set to work and try, by way of experiment, some one remedy, we should m time get to a oonolusion as to wh'ch waß the best one to follow. The best way to arrive at this conclusion would, I think, be to form an association which ffould be very beneficial to the district at large, for by holding meetings, Bay, every month or at intervals we might arrive at a lot cf useful information, not only regarding the Oodlin moth, &o , but on fruit culture m general. In a few yearß we shell want a market for our fruit, either m Us natural or preserved state, cr, perhapß, boih. At present we are ne t making auch headway as we should do m fruit culture whioh I believe Is owing to [fcvro things. F.'rtjt, we aro getting a great many more peats of different varieties than vie formerly had, whioh consider ably [reduces the quality as we'l as the quantity per tree ; second, and not leaet, owing, I have no doubt, to the first thing, orohardlsts get careless and say it is no use trying to grow fruit for the insect* of one sort or another destroy it, and some throw up the Bponge inßtead of trying to be masters of the tituation, It is the same with fruit growing as with other things We must not expect first-class fruits with out a good deal of labor and high class cultivation, and where thia is done we shall find the least mischief carried on by the peats of tbe orchard.