292 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



almost any place on the apple, but usually this meal, or any subsequent meal 

 for that mattei', includes only a very small portion of the outer surface of 

 the fruit. As has long been noted by writers, most of the young worms 

 enter the fruit in the spring or early summer at the blossom end. They 

 either crawl between the calyx lobes or tunnel into the calyx cavity at the 

 point where the lobes join the surface of the fruit. Thus more often the 

 young apple worm takes its first meals out of sight in the calyx cavity and 

 is protected by the tightly closed calyx lobes. 



We have noted above that Mr. Card found most of the eggs of the codli ng- 

 moth laid upon the leaves instead of on the fruit in Nebraska. In confine- 

 ment, he found that the young w^orms sometimes fed for twenty-four hours 

 on the leaves where they hatched, and ate out quite large pieces, usually 

 eating away one skin of the leaf and the inner tissue, leaving the other skin 

 intact. Whether they fed upon the leaves to any extent in the orchard was 

 not determined. 



Where it sjjends the first few daijs of its life — Apparently the newly-hatched 

 apple worm spends but a few hours of its life on the skin of the fruit. 

 Whenever it enters at any other point than at the calyx, it usually soon 

 begins to tunnel toward the core. However, seventy-five per cent, or more 

 of the young worms enter the fruit at the blossom end, and our observations 

 indicate that they spend several days feeding around in the calyx cavity. 

 When the worms hatch, the blossoms have been off for two weeks or more 

 and the calyx lobes have drawn tightly together (compare Fig. 146 and a 

 and b in Fig. 131) forming a covered cavity in the blossom end of the apple ; 

 this does not happen in the case of the pear, as the central picture in Fig. 

 146 shows. This is a very important phase in the habits of the apple worm, 

 as we shall see when we come to discuss "remedies.'" 



All are familiar with the first indications that the apple worm has begun 

 work ; the masses of little brown particles which it thrusts out of the calyx 

 are quite conspicuous, as shown in Fig. 133. These first few days of the 

 apple worm's life, which are usually spent in feeding in the blossom end of 

 the fruit, has proved to be the most vulnerable phase of the life of the in- 

 sect. It is during this time that we kill it with a poison spray ; just how 

 this is done is discussed later on. 



HABITS AND GROWTH OF THE APPLE W^ORM INSIDE THE FRUIT. 



The apple worm's objective point soon after it enters the fruit seems to 

 be the core. It usually reaches the core in about a week, and there begins 

 its destructive work on the seeds, of which it seems to be especially fond, 

 and on the surrounding flesh. It feeds in or near the core during the greater 

 part of the remainder of its life in the fruit. As it feeds, it increases in 

 size and has to shed its skin from time to time to accommodate itself to this 

 growth ; it is said that the caterpillar sheds its skin four times while feeding 

 in the fruit. As the worm increases in size, its head and thoracic and anal 

 shields change in color from black to brown, and the small blackish pilifer- 

 ous spots, so distinct in the young worms, as shown in Fig. 132, usually be- 

 come quite indistinct; we have, however, seen nearly full-grown apple 

 worms on which these spots were still very distinct. The body of the worm 

 also acquired a distinct pinkish or flesh color, sometimes even when the 

 worms are onlv half grown. 



