594 State Board ok Agriculture, &c. 



net or otherwise, as they hang from the trees and burning 

 them. 



If the worms get into the ground, late ploughing will do 

 much to expose them to destructive agents. Another pro- 

 tector is given in one of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Reports. It consists of a trough made by taking grooved 

 strips of plank and making a square trough of them 

 around the tree, on the ground, the space between the 

 trough and trunk of the tree is filled with earth, and the 

 trough filled with coal tar from gas works. This is 

 said to be a sufticient protection against the canker worm. 

 In applying the l)andages, troughs, or whatever may be 

 used, it must be remembered tliat they should be in 

 place early in the spring, so as to be ready as soon as the 

 moths come from the ground, which is as soon as the frost 

 is out of it, or even before. As has been noticed, in more 

 Southern localities some of them come out in the fall and 

 in mild weather all through the winter ; but I should think 

 that here, if the barriers were in place by the first of April 

 or the last of March, they would be in time. 



We need fuller observations than any that I know of 

 as to the habits of the canker worm in Vermont. This 

 moth has quite a number of insect foes, such as beetles, 

 ichneumon flies, and the like, and a large number of birds, 

 such as Chickadees, Thrushes, Warblers, Cat-bird, Cedar- 

 bird, Bob-o-link, Oriole, Sparrows, Blackbirds, Wood- 

 peckers, King-bird, etc., eat the larvfe and moths, and 

 some, as the Chickadee, devour the eggs. 



A similar canker worm is Anisopterix j)07netaria,I£arris, 

 which Dr. Packard thinks may be only a variety of the pre- 



