PROTECTION AGAINST MOSQUITOES AND FLIES.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3691, 23 October 1880, Page 4

PROTECTION AGAINST MOSQUITOES AND FLIES.

Quassia water is, according to a correspondent of Nature, a protection to peach trees against insect blight. The first year the trees bore well, and the new wood was elbow length or more. I next tried quassia in the vinery. Instead of, limewashing the,walls to get rid of the green fly, one watering with quassia dismissed then in a day. My head gardener, who had previously much experience in nursery gardening, wondered that be had never heard of it before. He how uses it in all oases as a protection from flies and blight. The -dilution goes a long way: one pound; (of chips of quassia wood boiled 1 and reboiled in other water until he has eight gallons of the extract for his garden engine. He finds it inadvisable to use it stronger for some plants. This boiling makes the quassia adhesive, and being principally applied to the underleaf, because most blight settles there, it is not readily washed off by rain. Quassia is used in medicine as a powerful tonic, and the chips are sold by chemists at from sixpence to a sbilltng apound. The tree is indigenous to the West Indies and to South America. And now as to gnats and mosquitoes. A young friend of mine severely bitten by mosquitoes; and unwilling to be seen so disfigured, sent for quissa chips, and had boiling water poured upon them. At night, after washing, she dipped her hands in the quassia water, and left it to dry on her face. This was a perfect protection, and continued to be so whenever applied. At the approach of winter, when flies and gnats get into houses and sometimes bite venomously, a grandchild of mine, eighteen month old, was thus attacked. I gave the nurse some of my weak solution of quassia to be left to dry on his face, and he was not bitten again. It is innocuous to children, and it may be a protection also against bed insects, which I have not had the opportunity of trying. When the solution of quassia is strong it is well known to be an active fly poison, and is mixed with sugar to attract flies, but this is not strong enough to kill at once.