400 State Horticultural Society. 



Mosquitoes breed in standing water, like rain barrels, water-tanks, 

 pools, etc., hence Jack Frost forces the adult mosquitoes to hibernate, 

 unless they can iind a tank or cistern of water in a warm attic, cellar, 

 or elsewhere, where they might continue to breed during the winter. 

 Clothes moths keep on breeding in ordinary closets and warm storerooms ; 

 a temperature of forty degrees F. will prevent the moths working, hence 

 valuable furs, etc., are now often placed in cold storage during the 

 siunmer. The insects which infest stored grains and seeds usually breed 

 much slower during the winter, and may cease to feed if stored in quite 

 cold places. 



Outdoor Insects, however, rarely if ever, eat during the winter. 

 The Apple and the Forest tent-caterpillars were very numerous and 

 destructive in 1898 in many parts of the country, yet how few of those 

 who suffered from their ravages have a thought or a care as to how or 

 where these pests are wintering. In the case of each of these insects, 

 the caterpillars transformed into millers or moths late in the summer, 

 and these moths laid a large mass of eggs around the smaller branches of 

 the trees upon which their progeny are to feed in 1899. These tent- 

 caterpillars, then, are now hibernating as little baby caterpillars, all ready 

 to burst through the egg shell, and begin eating the opening buds in the 

 spring. Encourage the children to look for the curious varnished egg- 

 masses of these tent-caterpillars this winter. Cut off every twig bearing 

 one, and after the children have had a good look at the eggs and the litle 

 furry caterpillars in them with a pocket lens or microscope, then, and not 

 until then, burn the egg masses. 



Some Apple Pests.- — In 1898, at least four thousand acres of apple 

 orchards in western iSTew York were stripped of foliage by canker worms ; 

 at least five different kinds of canker worms were engaged in this de- 

 structive work. In the case of three of the kinds, the moths emerged 

 from the ground during November and December, crawled up the trees, 

 laid their quotas of eggs on the bark, and then died, leaving it to the 

 eggs to carry the species through the winter. In the case of the other 

 two kinds, however, the\" are now asleep as little brown pupae in the soil 

 under the trees; they will awake as months during the first warm days in 

 March or April, and crawl up the trees, lay their eggs, and then die. 



