STATE IIORTirUI.TURAI. SOriETV. 27 



been used; as was shown by the large numbers of cocoons still adher- 

 ing to the wood. 



Little Prairie Ronde, Michigan, Oct. I2tli, 1872. 

 " Samuel Edwards, 



My Dear Sir : 



You will call to niind perhaps, that, while at the meeting of 

 the Horticultural Saciety last winter, I mentioned to you that I thought I had a better 

 device for trapjiing the apple worm than that patented by Mr. Wier. I experimented 

 during the season on about one hundred trees, and I feel assured that my method is as 

 much superior to his as his is to the straw band. 



I asked Mr. Wier for tlie privilege of jnitting his traps on a few trees in competition 

 with mine, and I agreed that, if his was the better, 1 would give him the benefit of the 

 fact. 



The worms have not been so numerous as last year, tliough they have badly dam- 

 aged our partial crop ; our Greenings are about all spoiled. I am in hopes that by a 

 thorough and systematic effort, anotlier year, to be able to report a [iromising progress 

 in the destruction of this insect. 



Perhaps I told you of my device — a simple wo(jden l)and to inclose the tree. I 

 have manufactured a berry box for a long time, and have a machine for cutting the runs. 

 These runs are about three and a half inches wide and seventeen and a half to eighteen 

 inches^long. 



I use one, two, or three, according to the size of the tree, and 1 fasten the runs 

 with a string — a jjiece of wool twine. 



These I put on about the middle of June, and have looked after them tluring the 

 season, every two weeks or so. I have put my runs on alternate trees with the Wier 

 trap, also on the same trees, some above, some below, and the result shows that my trap 

 will catch on an average four to his one ; at least this has been the result so far. Then 

 my trap is not only the cheapest, the most simple, the least work to clean, the most 

 efificienl, but wiiat is of some moment at least, it is not a patented thing. 



I find that f)r a part of the season the traps must be looked after as often as once 

 every twelve days, or thereabouts, while later, as at present, they can run as long again ; 

 as the weather becomes cool, the change to the miller is slower. I have caught, how- 

 ever, more worms late than early in the season. 



I took some runs to the meeting of my own State Pomological Society at South 

 Haven in September and distributed them among fruit-men, also to Grand Rapids. 

 And 1 regret that I did not send some to you in lime to have you give them a trial the 

 present summer. I will be glad to forward tliem another spring. I might, if you thought 

 advisable, send you a sample, including some that I have used, showing the marks of 

 the worms, to be exhibited at your winter meeting. 



.■\s you are aware, I have no quarrel with .\Ir. W^ier. He deserves credit for his 

 efforts, and his trap is, no doubt, an advance upon the old methorls, though, as I have 

 stated, 1 do not lliink it entitled to the dignity of a patent, and in this view I believe I 

 am very generally sustained by intelligent fruit men. 



Neither, as you need not be told, have I any ax to grind — or selhsh end to subserve 

 in this matter. 



Let it once lie seen that this form of trap — the wooden hand — is the cheapest, best, 

 far most efficient, and the basket and small fruit-box manufacturers can furnish them 

 just as good, and even better than I can — for they can furnish any length — at a price that 

 will be merely nominal. 



There is much more that I might say, as that it requires some little practice to 

 properly manage these runs, in taking them ofi" and killing tiic worms, the necessity, 

 that is obvious, (jf timely attention, and that but little good can be expected to result if 

 one man alone in a neighborhood gives battle to the infinite host, and nine-tenths of the 

 orchards are left to their unmolested mutiplication. But I have already made this let- 

 ter long. 



