474 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Shaffer. I could not say whether it would be a good shipper; its particular value is for 

 canning. 



Mr. Tice: Would not there be more vigor in the plant now than a few years hence? 



Mr. Willard: It has shown that same vigor for three or four years. I first saw it 

 at Oswego. 



Mr. Farmer: I don't want it to go out that I condemn the Columbian; but we 

 really need a good red raspberry. I swear by the Rural, and they say it isn't any 

 better than the Shaffer. The Burt strawberry was considered a new variety for 

 many years, and it eventually proved to be nothing but Captain Jack. The reason it 

 was better than that variety was because it received better culture. It may be the 

 same with the Columbian. Shaffer's is a wonderful berry, and the best we have. 



Mr. Z. H. Harris: I visited the Geneva Experiment Station three or four times the 

 past season, and saw Shaffer's and Columbian side by side. I think the latter has most 

 decided advantages over the former, particularly in color; and it is in every respect 

 more pleasing. 



THE BUD MOTH AND THE PEAR PSYLLA. 



Mr. M. V. Slingerland. of Cornell Experiment Station, was invited to make some 

 remarks regarding this pest, and he said: This insect pest seems to be alarmingly on 

 the increase in the orchards of western New York. It appears on the opening buds of 

 apple, pear, peach, cherry, plum and quince trees, early in the spring, as a small brown 

 caterpillar. The opening leaves are tied together with silken threads and the cater- 

 pillar feeds on the leaves or flowers within this nest thus formed. About June 15 

 the caterpillars are about three-quarters of an inch long, and are ready to change to 

 pupje, which they do in a silk lined case in their nest. The little moth, which looks 

 very much like a codlin moth, emerges in about two weeks, and curious, scale-like eggs 

 are soon laid on the leaves. The minute brown worms hatching from the eggs feed 

 during the remainder of the summer on the surface of the leaves, but protected by a 

 silken covering. Just before the leaves fall in autumn the caterpillars, then half 

 grown, migrate from the leaves to the angular places in the bark of the twigs, usually 

 within a few inches of the terminal buds. Here they spin over themselves a little 

 eilken covering, within which they pass the winter, and from which they emerge in the 

 spring to " nip in the bud " a prospective crop of fruit, a graft, or a budded stock. The 

 pest is a very difficult one to fight. It cannot be successfully combated in the egg or 

 moth stages. The only time when we can hope to reduce its numbers is in the spring 

 after it leaves its winter retreat. A thorough spraying with Paris green when the buds 

 are opening, and again a week later, will, I believe, destroy a large percentage of the 

 caterpillars. On young, small trees the nests, which are quite conspicuous about June 

 1. may be picked off and burned with profit, thus preventing the increase of the pest 

 for the next season. Another practicable method by which the caterpillars may be 

 destroyed before they have done much damage is to burn all the prunings from the 

 infested trees. The pruning should be done, of course, some time in the winter, or 

 before April 1, in the spring. If these suggestions are intelligently followed out I 

 believe this fearful pest can be kept in check. The bud moth is discussed in detail in 

 bulletin No. .50 of the Cornell Experiment Station. 



The pear psylla is present in a majority of the pear orchards of our state, and, under 

 favorable conditions, is capable of causing whole crops of fruit and most of the leaves 

 to fall from the trees in mid-summer, and in many cases the death of the trees has fol- 

 lowed. It is thus one of the worst pests that pear growers have to fear. The pest 

 appears on the trees during the first warm days of spring, before the buds start, in the 

 form of an active, jumping flea, scarcely as large as a wheat kernel, c nd resembling a 

 Cicadain miniature. These forms. the adults, have come from theci-evices of the bark, 

 where they spent the winter, to lay their very minute yellow eggs in the wrinkles on the 

 bark just below the terminal buds. From these eggs there hatch, about the time the 

 leaves'are expanding, minute, flat, oval, yellow lice, which move quiteslowly into the axils 

 of the leaves and flowers, where they begin at once to suck up the sap from the tree. 

 Thousands of them often occur on a small twig, and so many little pumps at work soon 

 cause the new leaves and shoots to droop or turn yellow and look sickly. These 

 appearances are about the flrst signs that tell the pear grower the pear psylla is at work. 



