t once all affected parts, and wash the wounds and whole
tree, and drench the soil under it, with copperas-water--one ounce of
copperas to two gallons of water. This is stated to be a complete
remedy.

_Defoliation_ of seedlings and bearing trees often occurs in July and
August. Land well supplied with the manures recommended, especially
wood-ashes, salt, and the copperas-water, has not been known to produce
trees that drop their leaves.

_Decay of the Fruit_ is another serious evil. Professor Kirtland and
others suppose it to be a species of fungus. Poverty of soil, and wet
weather, may be the cause. If the season be unusually wet, thin the
fruit, so that no two plums shall touch each other. Keep the soil
properly manured, and spread charcoal or straw under the tree, and you
will generally be able to preserve your fruit.

_The Curculio_ is the great enemy of the plum, and frequently of all
smooth-skinned fruits, as the grape, nectarine, &c.

[Illustration: (1) Curculio, in the beetle-form, life-size. (2) Its
assumed form when disturbed or shaken from the tree. (3) Larva, or worm,
as found in the fallen fruit. (4) Pupa, or chrysalis state, in which it
lives in the ground.]

Many remedies are proposed: making pavements, or keeping the ground hard
and smooth, under the trees; pasturing swine and keeping fowls in the
plum-orchard; syringing the whole tops of the trees four or five times
with lime and salt water, or lime and sulphur-water--the proportions are
not material, provided it be not excessively strong. It is recommended
to apply with a garden-syringe. But, as few cultivators will have that
instrument, they may sprinkle the mixture on the trees in any way most
convenient. Salt, worked into the soil under plum-trees, is said to
destroy this insect in its pupa state. At any rate, the salt is a good
manure for the plum-tree. We know a remedy for the ravages of the
curculio, unfailing in all seasons and localities--that is, to kill
them: spread a cloth under the tree, and with a mallet having a head,
covered with India-rubber or cloth that it may not injure the bark,
strike the body and large limbs sudden blows, which will so jar them as
to cause the insects to fall upon the cloth, and you can then burn them.
Do this five or six times in the season, commencing when the fruit
begins to set, and continuing till it becomes nearly full-grown. This is
best done in the cool of the morning, while the insects are still; th