THE ORCHARD.
HOW TO KILL THE BORERS.
A California orchardist tried to kill the peach borer by putting a gallon of ashes around each tree. He announces that the borers are killed and that his trees so treated have no curl leaf. His theory is that the borer caused the curl leaf in the peach and killing the worm restored the health of the tree, but he is entirely mistaken. When the borer is under the bark safely r.o solution, can touch or injure it. The only way to. get rid of the worm is to dig it out and kill it. He probably dug around the tree ©arly in the spring, and this digging may have operated favourably against the curl leaf. Digging away the soil and exposing the main roots to the weather is the only reliable remedy thus far found for the curl. No doubt the worm was housed under the bark perhaps six inches above the hole he entered at and some inches above the ground, so no application of. ashes or solution of lye could reach it. To dig it out would, of course, kill it, but if left a few days it would undergo its pupa stage, become m >th and go ; so unless he found dead worms under the bark he had no reason to suppose ashes had killed them. Sometimes in digging them out dead worms are found under the bark, so it seems worms occasionally die in the tree. As we lately stated, after digging borers out of the roots of thousands of trees last spring, this prescription was followed : —A soft wash was made of equal quantities of soft soap, fish oil, whale-oil soap and sulphur, heated together, then put on the base of the roots and body of the tree for a foot ab'.ve the ground. The moth lays its eggs about two inches above the soil, and, as it won’t lay on this paint, the tree so painted escaped them. This, paint is plainly seen this year also, and it is probable it will protect the tree for two seasons. There is hardly a worm to be found in those trees this year, whereas nearly all had them last. Prune trees then were infested badly that were fifteen years old,
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 18
Word Count
382THE ORCHARD. New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 18
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