THE FAMILY OF BORERS. 217 



to know where their weak points are, and so be able to attack 

 them effectively. The ajople-tree borer is the larva of an 

 insect that lays its eggs mostly down low upon the trunk of 

 the tree, near the ground, the latter part of Juiie or first 

 of July. The insects come out like a great many insects 

 that appear in the spring, and lay their eggs. These eggs 

 g ve rise to small borers, which are scarcely discernible the 

 fu'st part of the season. In the autumn you will see a little 

 of the rust-colored sawdust at the base of the hole. The 

 insect eats its way along, and crowds its castings out of the 

 entrance of hole. He is very small at that time. If you 

 visit the tree in September or October, with a penknife you 

 can pick out every one of them without any difficulty. They 

 are all superficial, very near the surface, and are very easily 

 reached. But, if you let them remain until the next June, 

 they are larger, and have gone a little deeper. The borers 

 that do the most injury are the ones that live three years; 

 and they do the most damage in the third year, of course, as 

 they are much larger. They will sometimes completely gir- 

 dle a good-sized tree by going round it, and cutting off the 

 supply of sap. The tree will become very fruitful all at once. 

 You wonder why you have such an enormous amount of 

 fruit ; but it is simply because its supply of nourishment has 

 been cut off by the girdling, and the tree soon dies as a con- 

 sequence. 



The only remedy for this insect, like some others, is found 

 iu eternal vigilance. We must be after him at the j)roper 

 season, and every time we catch him at his weak point we 

 must kill him. A man who has an apple-orchard should go 

 over it twice a year. If he goes in the autumn, he ^'rlll take 

 out the small ones ; if he goes through in the spring, he will 

 destroy those that have grown larger, and by the same pro- 

 cess, — by the point of a penknife. After they get older, 

 they bore larger holes. The third year they bore a hole up- 

 ward in the tree almost perpendicular ; then bore out toward 

 the bark, and make every thing favorable, so that the coming 

 June they are ready to come out as a perfect insect. They 

 can only be reached, after they get to this depth, by a large 

 amount of cutting the tree, which sometimes injures it a good 

 deal more than the borer himself does ; or else by searching 

 for him in his hole. The directions that are commonly 

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