While spraying is undoubtedly the most important aid and, if persisted in from year to year, may answer for its control, as its effects are cumulative, yet it is clear that other control measures should also be employed.  In all cases which have come under observation the insects have always been found most abundant in orchards which are in sod or are poorly cared for and allowed to grow up more or less in weeds and trash.  Also, orchards near woods always suffer severely, especially along the border.  As opposed to this condition is the notably less injury in orchards kept free from weeds and trash.  In such cases spraying usually given for other insects, as the codling moth, serves to keep the curculio well under control.  In fact, it may be said as a general statement that the curculio will never become seriously troublesome in orchards given the usual routine attention in cultivation, spraying and pruning now considered essential in successful fruit growing.  Serious losses from the curculio are almost conclusive evidence of neglect, which is best and most quickly corrected by the adoption of proper orchard practice.

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AN ANTIDOTE FOR WASP STINGS.—­It not infrequently happens that persons biting unguardedly into fruit in which a wasp is concealed receive stings in the mouth or throat.  Such stings may be exceedingly dangerous and even fatal since the affected tissues swell rapidly and this is liable to cause difficulty in swallowing and breathing.  An effective antidote is employed in Switzerland.  The sting is rubbed vigorously with garlic, or, if it is too deep in the throat for this treatment, a few drops of the juice from bruised garlic are swallowed.  If garlic is not to be obtained onion may take its place, but is a less active agent.  The efficacy of this simple remedy was verified by a Swiss specialist, who found it important enough to be presented at a session of the Vaudois Society of Medicine.

Increasing the Fertility of the Land.

PROF.  F. J. ALWAY, DIVISION OF SOILS, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

I have been asked to speak on “Increasing the Fertility of the Land.”  To speak on such a subject is sometimes a rather delicate matter because some people consider they have a soil so good that you can’t increase its fertility.  With some of the prairie soils, when they were first plowed up that wouldn’t have been so very far amiss.  Take those black prairie soils with the grayish yellow clay subsoil, with an abundance of lime in it, which you find in a large part of the state, including a large part of Hennepin County, and you have as good a soil as you may expect to find anywhere on the earth’s surface.  But you can’t keep a soil up to its full limit of fertility, no matter how good it is, unless you frequently treat it with something.

[Illustration:  Prof.  F. J. Alway.]