The Garden.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 450, 1 March 1890, Page 6

The Garden.

(By HORTIS.) Insect Pests. > The “ Indiana Farmer ” gives some very good suggestions on destroying insect pests, which will be very acceptable to agricultural Yeaders this season, when insects and destructive worms are numerous.

Currant worms are doing their destructive work already. White hellebore, sprayed over the bushes in the due proportion of water,, will finish them. A second spray mg may be necessary, as it is ahiiost impossible to reach all the leaves the first time. The proportion to use in spraying fruit trees, potato vines, etc., is one-third of a pound to a barrel of water, or one-fourth of an ounce to two gallons of Water, if only a small quantity is required. The gardeners about Danville, 111., cotnp’ain of the great destruction of young cabbage plants by the cabbage worm. In one instance a field cf 2,000 plants was entirely destroyed by them. If the gardeners had sprayed the worms with pyrethrum dissolved in water, an ounce of the powder to two gallons, they might have saved their plants and at very small expense. The spraying must be done thoroughly, so that each worm is covered. Perhaps a better plan is to dust them ■with a mixture of pyrethrum and wood ashes or flour, one part of powder bo thirty or forty parts of ashes. The cost of the article is sixty-five to seventy-live cents per pound, or ten cents per ounce. White hellebore sells at sixty cents. London purple sells at twenty to twenty-five cents per pound. A Grape for High Altitudes. A great number of experiments are being mado in California with the seed of the Cochin China grape vine. Seed has been distributed amonj; 800 persons in various parts of the State, and no pains will be spared to acclimatise this wonderful vine on the Pacific coast. In its native state it has been found in altitudes varying from 100 to 3,000 feet above the sea level, producing everywhere an enormous crop of fruit. With proper care authorities in grape culture believe that the Cochin China variety can be grown in all the wine regions in California and on the Pacific coast. A vine similar to this, but more vigorous and productive, was lately discovered on the coast of Guinea by Senor Arpore, chief to a scientific mission sent to that country by the Portuguese Government. The plant was found to be about four feet high,, with a crop of grapes varying from 90 to 100 pounds on each vine. The fruit was delicious and the wine made from it by 'Arpore and companions wa3 found very good soon after, rich in aroma, in colour and alcohol. A report is being prepared on the subject for the L’orbuguese Government. The Soudan and the Guinea annual tuberous vines are of the same genus as the Cochin China ; but the first is a dwarf and the second little better, as compared with the last-named. In Cochin it grows in some forests as high as 100 feet, climbing up and around lofty trees, or stretching itself on the soil, and in some places the vine becomes a wonderful mass of large clusters of. luscious grapes from top to bottom.