254 Appendix. 



Thinning fruit. — In the Pacific Northwest the thinning of apples is a prac- 

 tice that is badly neglected. As a result, much of tlie fruit is small, uncolored. 

 and consequently inferior in value. The advantages of tliinning in producing 

 better fruit are too well Icnown to need discussion. All of the terminal clusters 

 should be tliinned to one fruit and fruits should not be allowed to grow closer to- 

 gether than six inches. The thinning sliould be done when most of the cod- 

 ling moth larvae of the first generation are in the fruit. In the Pacific North- 

 west thinning should be done between .Tune 15 and .Tuly 1. In other localities 

 this work may be done earlier or later, but observation can determine the time 

 with reasonable accuracy. In , thinning, special care should be taken that as 

 many of the wormy apples be picked as is consistent with the rapidity of the 

 work. The wormy fruit thus removed from the trees should be buried, being 

 covered with at least six inches of earth. It has often been recommended that 

 the windfalls be gathered every few days and destroyed. In a small orchard 

 this is practicable, but in a large commercial orchard it would be far too ex- 

 pensive. 



Packing fruit. — The place of packing the fruit is of the greatest importance 

 when the codling moth is considered. The best plan, and the one which is 

 being generally adopted among the best Western orchardists, is to have the 

 packing done in the orchard. A moveable packing table is made upon runners 

 and this is drawn through the orchard. As the apples from two rows of trees 

 on either side are picked, they are carried to the table by the pickers. By this 

 method the apples are not moved any considerable distance until packed, and 

 the danger of bruising the fruit is thus reduced to a minimum. If infested 

 fruit is taken into a packing house, the larvae crawl out of the fruit and 

 spin their cocoons in the cracks and angles of the building. In the spring the 

 moths emerge and fly to the orchards. By packing in the orchard the wormy 

 fruit is piled up. and the larvae for tlie most part spin cocoons among the 

 apples. 



Many apple growers make the mistake of selling or trying to sell wormy 

 apples as first-class fruit. It is a difficult thing to pack a box or barrel of 

 apples and not put in a single imperfect apple, but the ideal of perfect fruit 

 should be the growers' guide. Second-class apples should be packed and shipped 

 as quickly as possible. The culls and windfalls should be promptly made into 

 cider for vinegar or disposed of in some otlier way, thus preventing the escape 

 .)f the larvae. If they are not so used, they should be buried. Experiments in 

 burying culls and windfalls have shown that when the larvae leave the fruit 

 they spin their cocoons on or between the apples and rarely try to reach the 

 surface of the ground. If the larvae survive, the moths which emerge die, as 

 tliey can not reach tlie surface of the ground. 



Storing fruit. — It is a great mistake to store infested fruit near an orchard. 

 as when the moths emerge in the spring they fly to the orchard, and in many 

 cases a large percentage of the fruit near the storehouse is infested. The writer 

 lias studied several cases where this was true, and in each case the resulting loss 

 could have been averted. If the fruit must be stored, the house in which it 

 is stored should have no cracks or holes through which the moths can escape. 

 A tight house can be fumigated with hydrocyanic-acid gas or with sulphur. A 

 simpler way is to crush the moths when they have gathered on a window or on a 

 screen : or, if left in the storeroom, they will die in a week or so. 



REMEDIAL MEASURES. 



Remedial measures against the codling moth are those from which little or 

 no benefit is derived, except that of saving the fruit from attacks of the insect. 



REMEDIES OF LITTLE OR NO VALUE. 



It is sometimes as well to know what not to use against an insect as it is 

 to know what to use. The following remedies liave been at various times sug- 



