STATK noHTK ri,TI HAL SOCIETV. .i I 



should be washed or coated, at the proper season, with some substance 

 that is offensive to the female insects, and which will have a tendency to 

 keep them from depositing their eggs. This remedy, which is directed 

 chiefly against the borers, requires some caution, as improper substances 

 may injure the trees; or, if applied at an improper time, no benefit will 

 accrue. Hence, under this head, specifications will be necessary. 



Scraping and rubbing with a \ery stiff, harsh brush, made of some 

 what rigid material, will often do much good in the way of removing 

 eggs from the bark, or destroying them. 



Here also belongs most of those specific remedies, as bandaging 

 the trees with pai)er, straw, rags, etc., to be used as traps, and with tar, 

 tin, etc.. to prevent the ascent of the wingless females of the Canker- 

 worm. 



But 1 can not slop now lu enumerate all the methods belonging to 

 this division of our subject, which may be adopted to rid the trees of in- 

 sects and their eggs. I therefore sum up the whole matter under this 

 general statement : Remove and destroy them in every possible way. Here 

 the entomologist can materially aid you by giving the history, habits and 

 descriptions of the various species in their different stages. 



Gathering, or Harvesting the Fruit. — This last division of Orchard 

 Culture affords on,e or two important nieans of diminishing our insect 

 enemies, which are very simple, and therefore the more valuable. .\s a 

 rule, injured fruit falls first, and in a majority of cases, before the insect 

 'contained has completed its transformations. By gathering and destrox- 

 ing it, you destroy the insects contained in it. Such fruit is not neces- 

 sarily lost, as it can be fed to hogs or other stock that will eat it, or where 

 it is not convenient to do this, hogs or sheep can be turned into the 

 orchard in sufficient numbers to keep that which falls eaten, so that it 

 may not remain on the ground long enough to allow the perfect insects 

 to escape. 



After the fruit is garnered, care should be taken to tlestroy the per- 

 fect insects, which come out and seek hiding places in the chinks and 

 crevices of the boxes, barrels or walls of the bins, or ( ellars in which it 

 is placed. 



These remedies, so far as apples are concerned, appl\ ( hiefiy to the 

 destruction of the Codling-moth. 



Having now briefly alluded to the various methods of destroying or 

 counteracting injurious insects, which a jjroper moile of culture affords, 1 

 will allude to one or two other general remedial agencies which do not 

 jjroperly come under any of the heads mentioned. 



The first, and one of the most im])ortant of these, is to be found in 

 the protection and nnillipli( ation of inse( t-eating birds, and is the excej)- 

 tion alluded to which does not require work, as these faithful allies do this 

 part of the work for us. I am aware there is .some doubt in regard to 

 their utility even in the minds of some horticulturists, but why. I am 

 unable to say, unless it be that some species have occasionally injured 

 some fruit for them. But the simjjle fact that the .Author of Nature has 

 given, to them this ii'S' • t eating habit, is evideiK e sufficient of itself to 



