THE ORCHARD.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 859, 17 August 1888, Page 20

THE ORCHARD.

REMEDY FOR, CURRANT WORMS. The currant worm is a good thing I Those who neglect their bushes get no currants worth picking, and it gives ‘hose who grow for market a chance _to get fair pnoes. Thousands of farmers either buy currants or dispense with that healthiest of luxuries currant jelly. Properly cultivated currant bushes crow so luxuriantly and produce such a mass of large leaves that it is an easy matter to prevent the currant caterpillars from doing any serious damage. The true remedy is powdered white hellebore, to be lad from all druggists. . On about 20,000 bushes last year we used forty pounds of hellebore. This is at the rate of about an ounce to thirty-two bushes. Every bush had a little hellebore, but if there was no sign of worms only the slightest shake of the box was given » passing. Some of the bushes where the caterpillars had commenced their work of destruction were carefully dusted all over. This takes more time and more hellebore, •but the cost is as nothing compared with the benefit. For dusting on the hellebore we use an old baking powder tin bo ** Pun ° h boles in the top large euough to let the powder come through freely—say about the size of a pin’s head. One of our neighbours, who baa one thousand bushes mixes two pounds of flour with a pound of hellebore, »nd he kept his bushes last year free capillars with less thah a pound of hellebore It is better to dust the busnes on a still morning while the dew is on the leaves. But the point of greatest importance is to dust the bushes the first moment there are any signs of the worms. And the next thing is tcf keep a close watch, and if any worms have escaped or new ones hatched out, go over the bushes again, and stick to it till they are absolutely free from the pest. _ Another point of importance is often overlooked. Late in the season we sometimes have a second or third brood of caterpillars, and because the currants are gathered it is thought unnecessary to destroy them. - These caterpillars not Only injure the bushes, but they descend into the ground for the winter and come out next spring ready to lay eggs by the million. If we ever expect to get rid of these pests, or even greatly lessen their number, we must kill the last brood of caterpillars, whether they are or sufficiently numerous to injure the bushes. The same is equally true in regard to the Sate brood of potato worms.