68 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, China^ 

 and most of the fruit-growing regions of the United States- 

 and Canada, would indicate that the slight variation in cli- 

 matic conditions which occurs between localities in this State 

 in which the codling moth is a serious pest and those localities 

 only a few miles distant in which it is yet scarce or absent 

 is not enough to account for its absence or scarcity. 



NOT MORE DESTRUCTIVE HERE THAN ELSEWHERE. 



While I cannot, therefore, concur in the optimistic belief 

 that any of the sections of the State devoted to apple growing 

 are to remain permanently free from codling moth injury, 

 neither can I agree with the pessimistic statement sometimes 

 heard that such injury is much more serious here than else- 

 where. Even approximately accurate estimates of the losses, 

 caused by any insect are difficult to make. In 1897, Mr. H. 

 B. Miller, ex-president of the State Board of Horticulture, 

 stated that a very moderate estimate of the loss in that year 

 from scale, moth, and scab was one hundred and fifty thou- 

 sand dollars. An editorial in the Oregon Agriculturist and 

 Rural Northwest, December 15, 1898, states that "The codling 

 moth is about as interesting an insect to the freight managers 

 of Oregon railways as to the fruit growers themselves. If 

 it had not been for the ravages of that insect it is probable 

 that the shipments of apples from the State this season would 

 have been increased by at least a thousand carloads." 



Simpson states that 50 per cent of the apple crop of Idaho 

 was destroyed by the codling moth in 1900, the injury ranging 

 from 5 per cent in some well cared for orchards to 100 per 

 cent in small orchards and isolated trees. 



I have myself repeatedly observed individual trees, both in 

 Oregon and Washington, on which it was practically impossi- 

 ble to find a wormless apple, although the trees were loaded 

 with fruit. I have not noticed, however, that the average 

 annual loss is relatively greater here than in Michigan. I 

 believe it is not. 



Eighty years ago Kollar wrote that in Germany more than 

 half, particularly of the choice fruit, was eaten into by the 

 apple worm, and Stainton, a celebrated English entomologist,. 



