446 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



"All these methods are good, and the orchardist will be guided in his choice 

 by individual circumstances." 



I should state here, by way of parenthesis, that all these bandages are most 

 effectual on young and smooth trees ; because, on older ones, where the bark 

 is rough, a great many worms spin up before they leave the tree, and before 

 reaching the bandages, and others spin up below the bandages, hence the 

 importance of scraping. We see here again how perfectly absurd is the claim 

 that all the worms will be attracted to a single one of the Wier traps. They 

 will be attracted to the most cosy place of shelter, whether that be afforded by 

 the bark of the tree, by the Wier trap, or by any other trap. 



We can also do much by destroying the worms before they leave the fruit. 

 It has generally been recommended to pick up all the apples, or cause them to 

 be devoured by hogs or sheep, but many varieties of the apple trees do not 

 drop their fruit until after this worm has issued. Now here is a problem for 

 our Agricultural College students to work at. The absence of the worm is 

 generally known by a mass of frass on the outside of the apple. Now, it would 

 be futile to go to a great deal of expense, when the worm had left before the 

 fruit fell from the tree. 



With regard to pears, I have been informed by Parker Earle that the worm 

 invariably leaves before the fruit falls from the tree. 



Another method is to use a hook at the end of a pole, as suggested by Dr. 

 Le Baron. I mention these little facts because they may not occur to many 

 of you, and I know many of you may profit by them. 



There are many indirect ways of fighting this insect, — first of all, by encour- 

 aging its parasites. I have discovered that two parasites prey upon the codling 

 moth. Some of the college students before me may want to know what I 

 mean by parasites. If I told you of a bug that deposited its eggs on the bodies 

 of sheep or other animals ; that that egg hatched out into a serpent, which fed 

 and flourished in the fatty portion of the sheep, without injuring it, for a 

 time, apparently ; that on the contrary, the sheep so infested would be able to 

 live without food, whereas without the parasite it would die ; that after a time 

 the serpent ate its way through the sheep, burrowed into the ground, and after 

 remaining there an indefinite time, would struggle through the earch and issue 

 as a bird, like its parent, the story would appear ridiculous. Yet it is hardly 

 more wonderful than the actual facts of parasitic insect life. 



But I will illustrate the parasitic theory of the insect world by showing you 



the tomato worm. 



[Here the lecturer illustrated, at some length, the curiosities of parasitism by means of 

 drawings on the blackboard, which cannot be produced here.] 



In referring to the common tomato worm, he remarked : 



There is a peculiar little microgaster, a little fly that comes along and invari- 

 ably settles on the back or head of the worm, knowing very well that it can- 

 not there be injured. It punctures the skin of that worm and inserts an egg, 

 or perhaps forty or fifty. The maggots hatched from these eggs feed on that 

 worm, — which in time becomes sickly, until at last the little parasites are fully 

 grown, and then they spin cocoons on the back of the worm, from which, 

 eventually, little black flies, like the parent, issue. Now, this is primary para- 

 sitism; but there are secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary parasites. And 

 .so it is, in the language of Swift: 



" So naturalists observe a flea 

 Has smaller fleas that on him prey ; 

 And these have smaller still to bite 'em, 

 And 80 proceed, ad injinittim." 



