214 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



the tree, spins a tlii.k cocoon in crevices in the bark, and 

 in a few days a second brood of the moths appears; but most 

 of the caterpillars hibernate in their cocoons. 



REMEDIES. The obvious preventive remedy is to gather the wind- 

 falls each day as soon as they fall and feed them to the hogs, while- 

 fowl should be allowed to run in the orchard. The best direct 

 remedy is to bind bands of hay or straw around the tree from July 

 to the last of September, replacing them every few days by fresh 

 ones, the old ones being burnt, so as to kill the caterpillars or chrysa- 

 lids hiding beneath the bauds. 



Prof. Forbes, as the result of numerous experiments, finds that by 

 once or twice spraying with Paris green, in early spring, before the 

 young apples had drooped upon their stems, there was a saving of 

 about" 75 per cent of the apples exposed to injury by the coddling- 

 moth. It should be added that spraying with this poison after the 

 apples have begun to hang downward, is unquestionably dangerous. 



Another general pest, often destroying young orchards or 

 separate trees, is the apple bark-louse, while stored apples 

 are destroyed by the maggots of flies (p. 126). 



The Plum-weevil (Conotraclielus nenuphar Herbst). 



This weevil has well-nigh 

 exterminated the plum in 

 the Eastern States, and its 

 attacks far outweigh in im- 

 portance those of all other 

 plum insects. It resembles 

 a dried bud; when the fruit 

 is set it stings the green 

 plums, making with its beak 

 a curved incision in which a 

 single egg is deposited. The 

 presence of the grub causes 

 the fruit to prematurely drop 

 with the larva within. The latter, maturing, leaves the 

 plum, burrows into the ground, and during the last of 

 summer becomes a beetle. 



REMEDIES. As a remedy the trees should be frequently shaken 

 or jarred, and the weevils, falling into a sheet placed beneath the 

 tree, should be collected and burnt. Forbes finds that about half 

 the damage done by weevils may be prevented by spraying the trees 

 with Paris green early in the season, while the fruit is small. 



size, puncturing a plum. 



