WINTER MEETING. 241 



tunity. The woolly aphig, with the appearance of cotton, covered the 

 trunks of many trees, and caused excrescences to grow upon the trees 

 to their decided damage. But this was not all, nor even the worst. 

 The boreis, instead of being afraid of the dark holes made by these 

 wraps, found a most convenient place to deposit their eggs. I soon 

 found that I must remove the wraps and take out the borers, or I 

 would soon have but few trees. I removed the wraps, and picked out 

 the borers two or three times during the summer. The temptation was 

 strong to discover the borers without entirely removing the wraps, and 

 as a result many were left and a large number of trees was injured, 

 some being entirely killed. 



While upon this subject, I may just as well say that borers are 

 numerous in these parts. The greatest number we have ever taken 

 from one tree is 36, although it is common to iind a dozen or more. In 

 the spring I remove the dirt from the base of the trees and examine 

 with the utmost care to find any borers that may have been left in the 

 fall. In about 7,000 trees we usually find about 25 "wprms" that have 

 been accidentally left in the fall. This work is done as soon as the 

 ground is in good condition in the spring, care being taken not to 

 make the ground too loose near the tree, as the rains will soak this 

 loose dirt full of water, and the winds will cause the tree to become 

 loose in the ground. It has cost me a good deal of money to keep the 

 trees from leaning or causing holes in the dirt around the base. But 

 this difficulty is largely remedied by drawing the dirt to the trees, mak- 

 ing a neat hill about nine inches high. The chief advantage of the hill, 

 however, is to compel the beetle to deposit its eggs above the level of 

 the ground. This hill will gradually become lower through the sum- 

 mer. When the trees are hoed, the utmost care is taken not to elevate 

 the hill the fraction of an inch above where it is found, as the eggs of 

 the beetle might thereby be placed below the surface of the ground. 

 These beetles deposit their eggs but a short distance above the sur- 

 face of the ground. These places are easily detected, having much the 

 appearance of a small wound made by inserting a pen-knife into the 

 bark of a tree. Should these i>Iaces be fresh, usually about June or 

 July, it occasionally happens that the sudden jj,rring of the tree will 

 bring to the ground the author of the mischief. It is a beetle, popu- 

 larly called a *' bug," somewhat larger and harder than a lightning 

 "bug." It has very long antennae, or "horns," which remind one of 

 the horns of a goat. It is of a dull lead color with two milk-white 

 stripes along the back almost the entire length. 



H— 16 



