I am using at the present time a decoction for the destruction of green and black aphides, thrips, and mealy bug on vines, which I find answers the end in view capitally, costs really nothing, and is within the power of anyone with a garden to manufacture at home. I bruise with a mallet 40 lbs. of common laurel leaves and young shoots, put them into a copper with about 30 gallons of soft water, which is boiled for about an hour. The liquor is then of a nice sherry color, and, of course, very poisonous, but, perhaps, not more so than many insecticides. The above proportions of leaves and water I have used in the diluted state, with soft soap in some cases to give it adhesiveness, and have found no ill results to occur even in the case of tender young growths of either indoor or hardy plants. It has been used this season, after exhausting our bought in remedies, on peaches out-of-doors and in the peach houses after the fruit was picked, on cherries infested with that troublesome black-fly, on melons for red spider, and on all with equally good effect, and it is so cheap that one need not be afraid of using it too abundantly. We keep now a good quantity of it always on hand, so that it can be got at for dipping or syringing at any time.

For mealybug I use it now instead of methylated spirit, and find it just as efficient as the latter. It is advisable when using it on trees carrying fruits to wash it off before it has had sufficient time to dry on the fruit. I mean to try it on apple trees overrun with American blight, and also as a winter dressing in stronger proportions than the above, and I anticipate good results from its use.

[We desire to call particular attention to this from a correspondent of the London Garden, because it probably contains the germ of a very useful hint to us. It is well known to entomologists that the odor of prussic acid is deadly to many insects, and the "common laurel leaves" here referred to is the cherry laurel, cerasus lauro-cerasus, the leaves of which abound in prussic acid. We cannot get these leaves in America, but peach leaves or the leaves of the wild cherry would probably do quite as well. - Ed. G. M.]