Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1870 — NASBY. How to Kill Root Lice. [ARTICLE]

NASBY.

How to Kill Root Lice.

Boil cheap tobacco, or the stems, in water; after the strength has been extracted from the tobacco, skint Miut the items and leaves, and to each bucket full of the water, add, say one quart of soap. When the soap becomes mixed, and the decoction sufficiently cooled, it is fit for, use. A good plan is to take a barrel to contain the mixture to a central part of the ground where the trees are to be planted, and when one lot ot trees are taken out for planting, another lot may be ptfl in. In thiii way, with but little loss of time, the trees will be immersed long enough to kill all the lice there may be on the roots. Tree roots, once free from lice, may he kept so by painting the trunks above ground-each year with boiling hot soap. This should lie done in the month of June, when it will answer the double purpose of keeping away the lice, and preventing the apple tree borers from depositing their eggs. The soap put upon the trunks of trees while it is not strikes into the bark, and is not soon washed .out Make a liberal use of the soap at the base of the trunks, as it is at these parte that the teperda prefers to lay its eggs; and just below the surface, it is, that root lice assemble before going upon the roots for the winter.— Prairie Farmer.