DESTRUCTION OF CANKER-WORMS. 125 



These methods of preventing the ravages of the canker- 

 worm are all that have been brought to the notice of the com- 

 mittee. Any of them properly used will doubtless prevent 

 serious loss in the crop of apples, but the farmer desires to 

 use that method which best combines economy and effective- 

 ness. None of them will prove satisfactory without the 

 utmost care in their application, for the grub is a most per- 

 sistent and determined creature and only succumbs to impossi- 

 bilities. But it is also true, that the more thoroughly the 

 trees are protected the less the attention afterwards re- 

 quired. 



The iirst year that tar, ink or any substance which kills 

 the grub is used, there is constant danger that they will 

 appear in such numbers as to "bridge over," and thus enable 

 some to cross on the dead bodies of their comrades. But 

 after an orchard has been well protected, there is little dan- 

 ger that the grubs will next year go up in sufficient numbers 

 to do this. 



It is evident enough that every orchardist can protect him- 

 self from serious injury by the canker-worm if he chooses to 

 make the efibrt. Let him invest sparingly, if at all, in new- 

 fangled notions and patents, but adopt those methods which 

 have been tried and found successful, and which do not 

 require large outlay. Let him remember that "Eternal vigil- 

 ance is the price of fruit" and that he must do his work with 

 the utmost thoroughness to insure success. By so doing his 

 eyes will not be pained by the sight of sere and reddened 

 trees in June, nor his cellars lack the red and golden harvest 



of October. 



Joseph S. Howe, /or the Committee. 



MINORITY REPORT. 



The opinion of the undersigned, as one of the committee, 

 is in brief to let the canker-worms quite alone, and if all apple- 

 growers in any locality infested would omit using any patent 

 tree-protector, tar or any other preparation, they would find 

 that in two or three years the canker-worms would disappear 

 from starvation, or lack of sufficient food, of a projDcr kind, 

 to bring them to perfection, sufficient to pro^Dagate their kind 

 for another year's operations. 



