36 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



gallons. If the infestation is bad, use the drive nozzle for the 

 bud-moth spray; if less than 15 to 20 buds per hundred are 

 infested, the ordinary nozzle will do enough effective work. A 

 person can cover a tree more quickly with the ordinary nozzle, 

 so the drive might only be used for serious outbreaks of bud- 

 moth. 



Fruit and Apple Worm. 



This insect is sometimes referred to as the green apple worm 

 and is the insect that bites holes in the young apple from the 

 time it sets until it is as large as a walnut, causing a portion 

 of the fruit to drop to the ground, the remainder of the holes 

 healing out to form rough scars on the fruit. There are sev- 

 eral species, almost a dozen in Eastern America, which do this 

 damage, mostly belonging to the Genus Xylina. In New York 

 state, X. antennata and X. lacticinera are the most common. 

 In Nova Scotia, X. bethunei is the principal species, although 

 we have most of the others. The life histories and habits of 

 all the species are similar. Passing the winter as an adult, they 

 come out in the spring and, after flying for two or three weeks, 

 they deposit their eggs, just when the buds are bursting, singiy 

 on the under side of the outer tips of the apple twigs, about 

 one inch back from the tip. In about seventeen days, or just 

 before the blo>soms open, the eggs hatch and the young larvae 

 emerge and feed on the apple leaves for almost two weeks 

 before attacking the fruit ; and it is right here that we have 

 our best opportunity to combat the fruit worm — when it is 

 eating the greatest amount of surface for a meal and when it 

 is still a very young larvae. 



After the blossoms fall the larvae begins to feed on the fruit, 

 eating holes into the side, and it becomes very hard to poison 

 as it eats so little surface at each meal and, being a large cater- 

 pillar, it takes more poison to kill it. A certain proportion of 

 the holes eaten into the apples heal out and form scars on the 

 surface of the picked fruit. A large proportion of the apples 

 eaten into, ']2 per cent by actual count, drop as a result of the 

 injury; so, for every three apples you pick which have been 

 eaten into by the fruit worm, you can reckon that seven have 

 dropped to the ground as a result of that injury. About four 

 or five weeks after the blossoms fall the fruit worm drops to 



