The Codling- Moth. J29 



captures of the insect in large numbers at baits or traps are the results 

 of mistaken identity.* 



There is one suggestion of considerable importance to be made in 

 this connection. Many of the worms are carried with the fruit into 

 store-rooms in the fall, where they .spirp their cocoons, consequently 

 the moths often emerge in the spring in considerable numbers and 

 escape through the windows and doors. It would be a simple matter 

 to put screens or mosquito netting over all openings during May, 

 June and July, thus effectually trapping the moths which would other- 

 wise find their way to orchards and start a numerous progeny. The 

 number of the moths which sometimes emerge in these fruit-rooms is 

 surprising. Hundreds of cocoons have been found in a single apple 

 barrel, and in one instance in California the openings in a fruit-room 

 were screened, and nearly i6',ooo codling-moths were thus trapped 

 and killed between the middle of April and the end of August, nearly 

 1,000 being caught in a single day, June 15. It would not be neces- 

 sary to go to the trouble of catching all the moths in a room thus 

 screened, for they would soon die a natural death. 



Call ]Vc Kill the Eggs ? 



It is only recently that anyone has suggested the possibility ot 

 reaching the codling-moth in its egg stage. Mr. Card reported 

 from Nebraska in August, 1897, that "the eggs are very easily 

 accessible, being laid, as they are, on the upper surface of the leaf. 

 In a limited way, in laboratory experiments, we have found that 

 kerosene emulsion will destroy these, but we are not yet able to say 

 whether a strength that may be safely used will prove effective in field 

 work." Mr. Washburn seems to have been the only one to try any 

 other experiments against the eggs. In 1892 he allowed a few apples, 

 upon which eggs occurred, to remain in a solution of one pound of 

 I XL (a mixture of lime, salt and sulphur), about one pound of whale 

 oil soap, and about an ounce of Paris green, in sixteen gallons of 

 water ; subsequently these eggs hatched. 



* The use of baits has recently received considerable attention in 

 Germany and in Der Praktische Ratgeber, for 1895, is recorded an account 

 of an experiment with glasses of apple jelly hung in the trees. We glean 

 from the report that quite a number of codling-moths were thus captured, 

 about half of them being females. 



