"Cultivator" (page 78) recommends the Mead-ville correspondent to use sulphur fumes in doses strong enough to kill thrip. If he does he will surely come to grief, as others have done before him. This pest cannot be dealt with like mildew or red spider. Such mild doses as would be quite effectual for the one would have little or no effect on the other. It may be possible we are not contending with thrip. I am inclined to believe we have the winged variety of the phylloxera, and if it should be so, we have yet to find out a successful remedy. There are five or six cold or heated graperies here in Torresdale - probably the largest house in the country is on the old Harrison place, two hundred and fifty feet long, double span - and all have had considerable trouble with the thrip so-called. Several had their crop of fruit ruined. The foliage all fell off before the fruit was colored, and of course the fruit was worthless, and I presume the vines are considerably crippled. I have succeeded in ripening the wood and saving the crop of those in my charge. The house is less than a hundred feet long, but very high. I was told it was full of thrip, and had prepared accordingly by removing all loose bark, giving the vines and house a good scrubbing with whale oil soap.

Still, they soon appeared by the thousand, but I kept them in check by hellebore, dissolved in water, applied by the syringe. It will destroy them till they get to the second moult, after which it does not seem to have any effect. The application of hellebore must be discontinued two or three weeks before the fruit begins to color, so as to have it all washed off by the syringing.

I also used tobacco smoke, but it does not kill the full grown insect, probably not the smallest either, even when applied strong enough to injure the foliage, but it stupefies them so that they drop down. Then I open doors and ventilators, and turn on the hose, wash them from the lower limbs, and rake them into the soil. One of my friends says he takes the broom and brushes them to death. However, syringing has to be discontinued when the fruit begins to color. So must tobacco smoke be seldom applied after this stage, as the fruit will taste of it. Then what?

My plan for this summer's campaign is somewhat different. I give it, hoping others will try it who know of no better. Vines thoroughly cleaned as before. When pruned, a dressing applied to prevent bleeding; painted them with a mixture of whale oil soap, sulphur, tobacco juice, yellow clay, and soot to color; add water enough to make a thick paint. House painted both inside and out. Also a quantity of manure dug into borders. Inside borders to be covered with tobacco stems.

The vines are now covered with straw and mats to keep them from the sun; as they are thirty-five years old, and stout in proportion, and cannot be bent down and covered with soil, which is by far the best way. Ventilators are opened every morning and closed at night.

I do not think A. H.'s wire cup and kerosene has anything to commend it, as the thrip begins on the lower leaves and works upwards; often the lower leaves are dry as tissue paper when the vine is green at top. Where can I send specimens of insects to be identified? Torresdale, Pa.

[Prof. C. V. Riley, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, will always be glad to receive any insect that may be sent to him.

In the use of sulphur it is dangerous to use the word "fumes," as many persons will understand this as meaning that the sulphur must be ignited as we produce the "fumes" of tobacco. This would destroy all plant life as well as the insects. But the sulphur placed under hot sun, or on pipes or flues, and so warmed to a degree less than ignition, gives off a vapor that insects do not like, without being injurious to vegetation.

It is well to remember that there are two classes of insects which the gardener has to deal with; those which eat, and those which simply suck the juices of plants. Poisons like hellebore, or Paris green are of no use to the sucking class like the green fly, as they bore through the tissue, suck the juices and thus escape. Potato beetles, caterpillars and the like, that feed on the foliage, of course eat the poison also. The sucking insects are usually reached through their breathing apparatus, and it is here that the vapor of sulphur, or the fumes of tobacco prove useful aids to us. But in the case of the thrip, which falls to the ground as soon as it smells tobacco, these remedies are of little account. Cleaning off the rough bark, and washing as recommended by our correspondent, is excellent, as destroying large numbers of eggs. - Ed. G. M].