Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/490

456&#93; 456} C AT trees, the most efficacious way t5 destroy them is the following: Make a strong decoction of equal quantities of rue, wormwood, and common tobacco, and sprinkle this liquor on the leaves and young branches every night and morn- ing, while the fruit is ripening. Various other experiments have been made with a view to extirpate these mischievous vermin. We shall, however, mention only the following methods, which have been attended with peculiar success : — Take three quarts of water, and one quart of vinegar ; let them be heat- ed till they nearly boil ; then put one pound or more of pure soot into the mixture, and stir it with a whisk till the whole is duly incor- porated. Sprinkle the plants with this preparation every morning and evening : in a few days all the ca- terpillars will disappear. This has also been erfected by sprinkling plants (and more especially goose- berry-bushes, which are remarka- bly subject: to the depredations of these insects) with a preparation consisting of one quart of tobacco- liquor, in which an ounce of alum has been dissolved. As soon as the plants or bushes appear to be in the least degree corroded, or any eggs are observed on the leaves, a brush should be dipped into the li- quor, which, by drawing the hand gently over its hairs, is carefully sprinkled on them. If any eggs be there deposited, they never come forward after this application j and if those eggs have already been changed into worms, they either die, or sicken, so as to fall orf the bush j in which case they may be easily killed. When the trunk and boughs of trees abound with the eggs of ca- terpillars, especially in the early CAT spring, it is advisable to rub the bark of all the affected places with a sponge dipped in soap-water ; and, where the height of the tree renders it necessary, this operation may be facilitated, by fastening pieces of flannel to a lath or pole, after soaking them in a similar li- quor. About the middle of the last century, experiments were made to manufacf me paper from the cods which caterpillars spin, and in which they undergo their transformations from a worm to a nymph, or chry- salis, and thence to a butterfly. These cods, after being cleared of the leaves that adhered to them, and well beaten, were reduced to a kind of pulp, which, when spread in water, was collecfe'd into tiie form, and made into sheets of pa- per of a coarse brown colour; but as some of them were much whiter than others, it was supposed, that by being beaten and washed a longer time in the mortar of die mill, they would acquire a greater degree of whiteness. At the pre- sent period, when the materials for manufacturing paper are exceed- ingly scarce, we would recom- mend a repetition of this experi- ment 5 for, if the result should be successful, considerable advantage may be derived from the cods of those insects, which occasion often irreparable damage to the industri- ous cultivator. — See also, Insect. WATER-CATERPILL A RSj.fi/WtYe aquaticce, L. are thus called from their living under water. They feed on aquatic plants, and respire by their stigmata in the same man- ner as the common caterpillars of the garden. There are, acccording to Reau- mur, two varieties of these insects, the one on the ' Potamogelon, or pond-