564 Bulletin 170. 



season. This jarring method is also applicable to orchards, and 

 is in fact the only practicable method to reach the caterpillars 

 after they are half or two-thirds grown, or after May 20th in 

 most localities in our state. The method can be practiced 

 by individual owners of fruit or shade trees, but where 

 village shade trees are infested, we would .recommend that 

 the village authorities hire two or more men, equip them with 

 padded mallets, brooms, and sheets, and have them make a busi- 

 ness of examining every shade tree and killing the caterpillars. 

 All of the shade trees in a village could be thus gone over in a 

 few daj^s and millions of the caterpillars destroyed before they 

 can transform. A second scrutiny of the trees by the same gang 

 of men a few days later would doubtless pay. One hundred 

 dollars expended in this way, now^ by a village, to combat these 

 caterpillars would not be felt by the individual taxpayers, and 

 would doubtless result in saving the lives of shade trees worth 

 ten times this amount. It would not be advisable to trust to 

 individual property owners to jar their trees, for many would not 

 do it, and thus would breed a crop of the caterpillars for their 

 neighbors the next season. 



Cotton batting, coal tar, or similar bands put on trees to pre- 

 vent the caterpillars from crawling up, will avail but little in 

 reducing their numbers, for only those which fall from the trees 

 or happen to wander from the defoliated trees will thus be kept 

 from going up. 



These hordes of tent caterpillars which are now ravaging 

 shade and fruit trees in our state can be readily controlled if 

 prompt and intelligent action be taken. 



M. V. Slingerland. 



