WAIKATO DLSTRICT NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7382, 17 July 1885, Page 6

WAIKATO DLSTRICT NEWS.

[from our own correspondents.l Ngaruawahia, Thursday. Mrs. Stockton was taken up to Hamilton again yesterday and examined by Dr. Carey, who at once pronounced that her shoulderbone was out of joint, and that from tfee appearances it had been so for some weeks. 1 his would take the matter back to about the time when she was arreited by the police. The unfortunate woman, however, stoutly refused to allow the doctor to set the bone, and returned home again unoperated upon. Cambridge, Thursday. The gravelly soil about Cambridge, though it has its advantages, has ita disadvantages also. One of the latter is that fruit trees, especially apples, in it are exceedingly liable to destruction by fungus, which attacks the roots. In the case of one orchard of «ix acres, in which the trees vary from two years to seven or eight years, the owner this past season has lost 160 apple trees from this fungus. He is now applying coarse sulphur to the roots, which can be placed on the ground for 13* per cwt. Aβ many orchards throughout Waikato suffer annually from this disease, it may not be uninteresting to know that there is another and a cheaper remedy, which, while it will destroy the fungus, will at the same time prove equally efficacious against the aphis or woolly blight in apples. Take 201bs. of sulphur, and boil in an iron vessel with 21bs. of quicklime and as muoh water as will allow the mixture to be conveniently stirred. When this has boiled about twenty minutes add six gallons of water, into which put 21bs. of potash (not caustic potash, but the ordinary potaah of commerce), and let the whole boil together for another twenty minutee. One pint of this liquor with seven times its bulk of water, may be applied to the soil immediately around each tree, the surface soil having been removed to the depth of an inch or two, say for the space of a foot round the stem of the tree, and the liquid being sprinkled over the roots and the top soil removed away being replaced. The liquid must be applied hot, but not boiling, and great care must be used in making and using not to allow it to touch the hands or face, as the boiling of the lime and potash together greatly increases the strength of th* latter, causing it to become strongly caustic.