368 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. W. H. Hnrlbut said he found a great many cocoons under the bands on 

 his trees, and also many bright brown chrysalis. "Were they different stages of 

 the same insect ? 



Mr. H. H. Bidwell said the moth forms a chrysalis sometimes in a cocoon 

 and sometimes without a cocoon, if it can find a snug retreat. He said he only 

 found one codling moth on his pears. Accounts for this by the fact that he 

 has plenty of birds about his orchard. Has six wren houses and two bluebird 

 houses. He described the habits of the codling moth in answer to inquiry. 

 The miller deposits the eggn in the blossom end of the young apple. lu two 

 or three days, according to the weather, they hatch out and enter the apple. 

 When they get their growth they crawl out and let themselves down by a web, 

 or crawl down, or fall prematurely with the apple. They crawl up or down 

 for a hiding place, where they spin a cocoon about them. In a week or ten 

 days they are transformed into a miller, which escapes and lays eggs in the 

 remaining apples. It is one or two days before they mate, and one or two days 

 before they Jay the eggs. 



Mr. W. H. Hurlbut said he had pear trees around and among his apple trees, 

 and very few pears were attacked by the moths, while nearly all his apples 

 were spoiled. 



Mr. A. Voorhees said there were more worms in his Bartletts than in any 

 other variety, and in his Flemish Beauties very few. 



Mr. H. Chatfield said he found canker-worms under the bands ; also a green 

 worm about an inch long in a cocoon. 



Mr. A. J. Pierce stated that at Bear Lake he noticed the twigs of maple shade 

 trees girdled by a very large white wooly caterpillar. 



Mr. C. H. Wigglesworth said he found a small white woolly caterpillar on his 

 apple trees. 



The question for the next meeting is " The pear tree, its culture and enemies." 



South Haven, August 11, 1873. 

 The subject for consideration was *' The pear tree, its culture, diseases, and 



enemies." 



Mr. Bidwell remarked that he had been informed that in Illinois and in some 

 sections of the country where pear trees had been planted extensively, and 

 which were considered well adapted to fruit-growing, pear trees had been 

 killed or badly injured by the severity of the last winter, and that they were 

 giving up pear culture as well as peach growing; therefore he hoped the cul- 

 ture of pears might be encouraged here. He thought that blight was caused 

 by a lack of moisture in the soil, during a drouth and excessively hot weather, 

 after a luxuriant growth in the early part of the season. The roots were not 

 able to supply sap enough to keep up a free circulation. This was apt to be 

 the case in very hard clay, which baked and became very dry in a drouth. Mr. 

 J. Williams had expressed the opinion that cutting off the tap-roots when trans- 

 planting was a cause of blight. The roots did not then grow deep enough to 

 draw a sufficient supply of moisture. Mr. Bidwell thought that cutting back 

 the new growth in the spring, so as to increase the roots faster than the top, was 

 a good plan. From the frequent occurrence of blight during a thunder-storm, 

 some had concluded that a lack of moisture was not a cause of blight, but 

 that there was a special demand on the vital forces of the tree before enough 



