164 Wisconsin State Hokticultubal Society. 



etc. But the tent caterpillar, assisted by canker worms have 

 claimed and appropriated to their own use at least ninety per 

 cent., without hindrance, of all these trees. I cannot understand 

 this wholesale neglect on the part of their owners, unless it was 

 the magnificent over-produciion of 1880; since all are anxious 

 to grow fruit for home use at least, and since, also, it is but 

 a very small job to clear any orchard of the tent caterpillar by 

 the aid of a tin kerosene lamp suspended in a wire frame, in 

 which the lamp is always right side up, and attached to a pole 

 long enough to reach the highest nests; or, in other words, what 

 is called a torch lamp. With this lighted lamp go through the 

 orchard once a week during the last half of May and all of June, 

 applying the fiery torch to every nest that can be seen. This 

 work, when once got at, is so absorbing in interest that naught 

 but a house on fiire will take you from it as long as a nest can be 

 seen to destroy. 



A wholesale destruction may be made of canker worms and 

 caterpillars by the use of arsenic dissolved by boiling in a kettle of 

 water out of doors, making a strong solution, which must be re- 

 duced before using, weak enough not to injure the foliage of the trees 

 on which it is to be used. There is not much danger in getting 

 it too weak. This point must be determined by experimenting 

 on small branches, by dipping them in the weak solution and 

 watching results. To apply this remedy, use any of the machines 

 that are made for forcing or throwing water, and force through a 

 spray nozzle over the trees from casks containing the poisoned 

 water. Arsenic costs but six or eight cents, per pound, and I think 

 would be good economy to use it in place of Paris green for the 

 destruction of the potato bug. The casks of poisoned water 

 could be transported through the orchard on your back, if you 

 prefer that way instead of taking them in a wagon. 



In regard to varieties, all suffered alike in root killing. Iron- 

 clads are in no better condition than half hardy varieties. More 

 depended on the condition of the soil in regard to moisture than 

 on anything else. Early varieties do not seem to suffer as great 

 a degree of exhaustion as fall and winter varieties do, in produc- 

 ing a heavy crop of fruit. In this climate of great extremes in 



