twigs. The fruit is somewhat flattened, yellow, with some crimson splashes; flesh yellowish, rather firm, crisp, juicy and rich, with a mild acid and somewhat peculiar flavor; greatly prized by some, and less acceptable to others. Season from October to March. I value it very highly, both for eating and cooking.

King, (of Tompkins county.) SEC. GOODALE. This is a fruit which is being extensively introduced into the State, and for various reasons it is very desirable that we learn as much as we can in regard to its value for our uses. No tree can be more cheaply and easily grown to good size and of handsome appearance in the nursery; hence nurserymen are ready to furnish as many as buyers will take. I have grown it, perhaps as long as any one in this State, but have not been able to arrive at satisfactory conclusions concerning its value in Maine. Sometimes it has suffered apparently from severity of winters, young trees more than those grafted in limbs, but even those sometimes show injury in the heartwood. The samples before us show its size and fine appearance. In quality it is good enough to sell well, and if the tree is hardy enough and sufficiently productive, and its keeping qualities satisfactory, it will prove a great acquisition, but on these points some doubts exist in my mind.

MR. VARNEY. It is a splendid growing tree, both in the nursery and orchard. I ate my last apple of it so late as the fourth of July. It is not first-rate, but very good, and its bearing quality about medium. They are usually in eating in January and February; but with care, I have kept them later. It is an excellent tree to transplant.

MR. A. MOORE of Anson. My own experience with this variety has not been satisfactory; the trees show disease, and the heartwood becomes rotten; but others not far from me have had pretty good success with it. It is so peculiar in its requirements, failing with some and succeeding with others, that I would be glad to learn what are the necessary conditions of success.

FRIEND TAYLOR. The King (of Tompkins county,) was so highly recommended to me by a friend in Western New York, where it was greatly prized, that I have grafted about a hundred trees with it, and some have come to bearing so that I raised a few barrels this year. It is a fair eating apple, but will not keep so well as the Baldwin or Greening, and should be marketed by the first of February. It is liable to rot before coming to full maturity. It is a very thrifty grower, and productive. I know of several trees

among the first set out in our section which bear ten or twelve bushels each; they are probably about fifteen years old My hundred trees which I grafted when I had so great confidence in it will be in bearing soon, but my expectations in respect to them have moderated considerably from what they were when I first learned of the apple.

On motion of Mr. COLBURN, member from Kennebec county, the thanks of the Board were tendered, by a unanimous vote, to the people of Skowhegan and vicinity, for their hospitalities and courtesies during the session, and the Board finally adjourned.

APPLE TREE BORER.

In this connection I am happy to be able to present the following communication from one of the most critical and patient observers in the State, as well as one of its most skillful fruit growers, embracing some facts in relation to this insect, which, so far as I am aware of, have not been previously published.

S. L. GOODALE, Esq.-Dear Sir: You request me to make some statement in regard to the apple Tree Borer and its ravages. I have watched the operations, and studied the habits of this destructive insect pretty closely for many years, but cannot say much in addition to what was given in my paper on fruit culture, published in your report for 1862. I have, however, since then, noticed the exact time of its coming forth from the tree, in its perfect or beetle state. They all seem to come out at the same time, to a day, in the same year, but that time varies in different years, according as the season is forward or otherwise. During the last ten years they have once left the trees as early as the twenty-eighth of June. This is the earliest I have ever known them to leave; and once, the latest, on the eleventh of July, but usually about the fifth of July. Probably the time varies, also, in different latitudes. The length of time they remain in the tree from the laying of the egg till the perfect, winged insect leaves, is about two years and eleven months, running into four

*Among Mr. Currier's contributions to fruit culture may be mentioned the origination of new varieties of Raspberries; Hybrids between the Antwerp and Cap families, including many of high promise. So many are they and so marked are their peculiarities from others, that some years more of careful observation and selection are necessary to prove which are the best of them, before introducing them to the public.

different years. They cease boring in the fall of the third year, and transformation takes place during the months of May and June of the fourth year, so they are ready to leave as stated above.

I do not know how soon they commence laying their eggs after leaving the tree, but I am confident they do so by the latter part of July, for I have seen their mark and destroyed the egg early in August; and by the twentieth of August the young borers are at work. I think it is certain, though not generally believed, that they, or some of them at least, lay a second litter of eggs later in the season. I have frequently been puzzled while hunting for young borers in June, to know why some of them should be very small, apparently just hatched, and close to the outer skin of the bark, while others, much larger, had gone through the bark; and yet both were evidently from eggs of the year previous. I came to the conclusion that there must be two litters of eggs, and that those of the second litter do not hatch till the following spring. At length I was confirmed in that belief by finding a beetle on the trunk of a tree, close to the ground, evidently depositing eggs, on the last day of September. And this year I found another on the twenty-sixth day of August. I could see the mark it made in the bark, and on cutting, carefully, found the egg. At the same time, and in the same tree, I found a young borer, less than a quarter of an inch long. This, doubtless, was from an egg laid early in the season. I have had other, and to my mind conclusive evidence, that the eggs are not all laid early in the season, and that those laid late do not hatch till the following spring.

Then, if eggs are laid as early in the season as July, and as late as the last of September, whatever means are used to prevent their being placed at the collar of the tree, should be applied as early as the middle of July, and kept in good condition till October. Then we have all the rest of the year to hunt the young larvæ and dig them out, before they do serious injury to the trees, though it is a trifling job, requiring but a few moments to a tree, if attended to properly and in season.

The best means that I can devise for safety, is to put something round that part of the tree to protect it for several inches above the ground. Almost anything will answer. It may be old rags, old bootlegs, sheathing paper, a plaster made of clay, sods, or even a small mound of earth. The beetle runs down the trunk, and lays its eggs close to the ground. If the ground is dry and

shrunk away from the tree, it gives her a chance to go still lower, and when the ground swells on becoming wet, it covers the grubs out of sight; and beside that, they naturally work downward the first year or two. This is why so many trees are ruined by them before the owner is aware of it, when if they were kept up in sight they would be destroyed. Sometimes a very slight obstruction will stop them. I once tied a branch of honeysuckle to the trunk of a mountain ash three feet from the ground, with a piece of twine, and the next year found borers there. At another time I tied a raspberry cane to the trunk of an apple tree, and afterward found borers there. But on no other part of the tree will they prove so destructive as at the collar-close to the surface of the ground, because no where else can they so effectually hide themselves.

Some assert that the rough bark should be scraped off and the tree kept smooth, so that insects may find no harbor for themselves or shelter for their eggs. If such practice is beneficial in any case, (which I very much doubt), I am convinced it is not so in regard to the borer. The beetle chooses a spot where the bark is smooth, green and tender, and prepares a place suitable for the egg, and for the sustenance of the larva. If the surface was completely covered with loose scales of dead bark, probably a borer would never get through it.

But, however much we may write or talk on this subject, persons who are habitually careless and negligent, will allow their trees to be destroyed by this and other pests, while those who are determined to give the needed care and attention, will find a way to prevent so serious a loss.

Yours truly,

WALDOBORO', October, 1872.

JOHN CURRIER.

THE RELATIONS OF BOTANY TO AGRICULTURE.*

BY WILLIAM S. CLARK.

There is much reason for gratitude and encouragement in the fact that the general subject of agricultural education need no longer be discussed at the meetings of this Board. That good mental training, some literary culture and familiarity with the laws and phenomena of nature are useful to the farmer, is no longer denied. That chemistry, by revealing the composition of air, water, soils and manures, as well as of plants and animals, has rendered a rational system of agriculture possible, is universally admitted. The chemical force, however, exerts its influence principally upon dead matter, and is subordinate to that other greater mystery which organizes mineral substances into those varied forms of vegetation which clothe the earth with beauty and furnish the indispensable food of animals.

Baron von Liebig has said: "The scientific basis of agriculture embraces a knowledge of all the, conditions of vegetable life, of the origin of the elements of plants, and of the source from which they derive their nourishment." Professor Lindley also asserts that "good agriculture and horticulture are founded upon the laws of vegetable physiology;" and that "no man deserves the name of gardener who is not master of everything known as to the way in which plants feed, breathe, grow, digest, and have their being." How astonishing and humiliating then to every enlightened American must be the fact that while in Europe almost every university and every large city has its botanic garden for the instruction and entertainment of students and people, there is not in these United States a single general collection of living plants, systematically arranged and adapted to convey any adequate idea of the wonders of the vegetable kingdom. It seems, therefore, not inappropriate to devote this hour to a consideration of the nature and objects of Botany, its relations to agriculture, and the position it should occupy in the education of farmers. The study of this science, with suitable facilities and a proper regard to its practical applications, cannot fail to add immensely to the material wealth, the intellectual and æsthetic culture, and

*A lecture delivered before the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, December, 1872.