124 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



rid of it. Perhaps if we can turn hogs or sheep into the orchard 

 or the fields where these trees border we may be able to control 

 the trouble partially ; but it will only be a partial control. I 

 think there are many places in the State where trees are grow- 

 ing along fences and along stone walls, that year in and year 

 out are producing perhaps half a peck to a peck of sound fruit 

 and a bushel to five bushels of blemished fruit, that it would be a 

 great deal better for the fruit grower to cut down and burn these 

 than to leave them to be a menace to his orchard and to his 

 neighbors' orchards. If these particular pests, viz., the rail- 

 road worm and the apple maggot and the apple curculio, and 

 perhaps others that work in a similar manner are not troubling 

 the trees along such places we can fight ofif the other pests by 

 means of the spray pump, driving right along each side in most 

 cases, and control the caterpillars, the codling moth, the scab 

 and probably the canker; but in those places where we cannot 

 reach the tree satisfactorily with the spray pump, or where the 

 trees are affected by pests that cannot be reached by means of 

 a spray, I think good sanitation, protection for the rest of our 

 trees demands that we dispose of them and start trees in an- 

 other place. It is a profitable thing to have trees along the 

 fences if we can grow sound fruit there ; but if we cannot grow 

 sound fruit there, if the trees are a menace to the rest of our 

 orchard, it is not a paying business proposition to have them. 

 These two pests we have just been mentioning, the curculio 

 and the railroad worm, spend the winter near the surface of the 

 soil, in beds of sod, or under sticks, or under stones, and then 

 come out early the next spring to infest another year's crop. 

 And unless we can turn the soil over and bury these pests so 

 deeply that they can't come out the chances are we shall have 

 them the following season and instead of decreasing in numbers 

 they will increase. 



Another point that may be mentioned in connection with or- 

 chard sanitation and which bears directly upon the control of 

 our insects and diseases is great care in the pruning of our 

 trees, in the removal of all dead or dying limbs. Sometimes we 

 see a limb towards the outside or the top of a tree that has died 

 back six inches. It is only a small limb but something has de- 

 stroyed it. We think it is too far out or too much bother to 

 remove it. If that limb is left there, probably by the end of 



