336 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



on the leaves and tendrils of the trees, and thereby sap their vigor at 

 the time they are putting forth their greatest effort to mature and ripen 

 their fruit. At this particularly delicate season with apple-trees, any- 

 thing that will stunt their growth or sap their vigor may cause the 

 slightest injury to prove abortive. 



My short experience in orcharding, and what I have learned by 

 observation, forced me to conclude that nothing short of the destruc- 

 tion of the codling moth will prove effective. Our native birds went 

 about it right, and if we ever expect to clear our orchards of moths 

 we must fight them on the same line. No Chinese false faces can drive 

 them away; they have come with the intention of staying. 



A few years ago I had a line opportunity and leisure time to de- 

 vote to some experiments in the way of combating the moth, and I 

 can serve no better purpose than by relating them, and will give them 

 here. 



In my side yard I had growing a fine New York pippin tree in 

 full bearing, and up to that time I do not think it had ever borne an 

 apple without a worm in the core. The spring when I determined to- 

 try an experiment my tree was well set with fruit, and when about the 

 size of a marble, I sharpened my knife and prepared for business, de- 

 termined that if the moths destro.ved my apples that year they would 

 have to do it without a calyx on my apples to lay their eggs in. I 

 commenced by thinning them out to about one-fifth the number, and 

 shaved off smoothly the pointed blossom ends, or calyx, of the re- 

 mainder as high up as I could reach, standing on the ground, and from 

 there up standing on a ladder. (I wish to say that I thinned my apples 

 down so much to keep my tree from falling into the bad habit that I 

 denominate alternating, which is over-bearing one year and not blos- 

 soming the next.) 



I found my experiment a very tedious one, one that would become 

 exceedingly monotonous before a man would get over an orchard; but 

 I had been vexed so often by having my promising apples destroyed 

 by the larvie of the moth that I persevered till I was through, deter- 

 mined there should be a stop put to it. 



I got that fall for my trouble just what I expected to get — as 

 splendid a crop of big, sound pippins as any one ever looked att 

 smooth all over alike, only a little scarred at the blossom end where 

 the calyx ought to be, and a little too much flattened from end to end 

 to pass currently for New York pippins. I had a number of fruit fan- 

 ciers to come in my yard to examine my apples and tell me the name 

 of them, but they could not do it, never having seen the variety be- 

 fore. 



