INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 441 



sap suckers, a great number of ants, which wait upon tliem and 

 cultivate their friendship, for the purpose of procuring the sweet 

 fluid they discharge from their bodies. They are their milch 

 kine, and as such are deemed by them worthy of their care and 

 attention. 



In regard to our dealings with insects injurious to vegetation, 

 we should use no half-way measures, as they are only calculated 

 to give a plant present relief, or i^eraove the mischief to some 

 other vegetable. Such, for instance, as the use of lime, ashes 

 or snuff, in dusting the plum tree, to prevent the ravages of the 

 curculio. The effect of such a mode of procedure, is to drive 

 the timid insect to the apple or some other fruit tree, but would 

 in nowise lessen its depredations. These methods are not suffi- 

 ciently sanguinary, and nothing less than their entire destruc- 

 tion, in every period of their growth and transformation, should 

 satisfy the cultivator. It is my intention, in the remainder of 

 this essay, to confine myself principally to insects injurious to 

 the apple tree and its fi^uit, as by so doing I am persuaded lean 

 best promote the interests of the farmers of Essex county, and 

 attain the object sought b}^ their societ3^ 



Of the various insects that infest the apple tree, the most in- 

 jurious is the canker worm. They appear to have been known 

 at an early period of our history, and are natives of the country, 

 and most probably were formerly accustomed to feed upon the 

 white elm, before entering the orchards of the Puritans. There 

 is an insect described by Kollar, called the winter moth, which 

 is found in Europe, and very much resembles our canker worm, 

 both in its general appearance and habits, which has led some 

 American writers on fruit trees to fall into an error, by suppos- 

 ing them to be identical, and who have in some instances used 

 Kollar's illustrations of the winter moth to represent the can- 

 ker worm. The chief distinction between them is this : the 

 American female insect or grub is destitute of wings, while the 

 European is provided with short rudiments. The earliest ac- 

 count we have discovered of the ravages of the canker worm in 

 our Commonwealth, was in 1661, and thus related by John 

 Hull : " The canker worm hath for fewer years devoured most 

 of the apples in Boston, and the apple trees look in June as if 

 it was the 9th month." In 1770, to' prevent the ravages and 

 progress of canker worms, trenches were dug around the 



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