TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 113 



some localities tlie.v will find food tliere during most of the winter. 

 Therefore, the axe, fire, and sheep may all be employed in removing one 

 of the obstacles to pofitable fruitgrowing. If you ask me what particular 

 insects are likely to pass the winter in the places just mentioned, I will 

 say that the red-necked agrilus, A. ruficollis, that caus3s galls on the 

 canes of raspberi-y, blackberry, and dewberry, often working serious in- 

 jury to them; the raspberry root-borer, JEgeria ruhi; the plum curculio, 

 Gonotrachelus nenuphar; the apple curculio, AntJionomiis quadrigibbus ; 

 possibly the codlin moth, Carpocapsa pomonella; and the possibility will 

 reach a reality if seedling apple trees are growing up among peach and 

 cherry trees, all in a half wild condition. And, in fact, if these last occur, 

 you may safely multiply the number of insects by ten. I never see a 

 barbed wire fence take the place of an old Virginia worm-fence, with 

 its rod of jungle along each side, without feeling that the cause of econom- 

 ic entomology has been aided, and just that much done toward keeping 

 injurious insects in check in that particular neighborhood. We are all 

 of us familiar with that old threadbare anecdote of the fellow that had a 

 leaky roof. When it rained, it was too wet to fix it; and when the weather 

 was dry, it did not need any fixing. We all laugh at the ridiculousness of 

 this, but there are thousands of fruitgrowers that are practically doing 

 almost the very same thing. There comes a season when the apple crop 

 is almost a failure, and the codlin moth is consequently greatly reduced in 

 numbers — almost exterminated, in fact — for want of apples to breed in. 

 During such years, when I go about the country and ask people if they are 

 spraying for the codlin moth, they look at me in blank astonishment, and 

 say, ''there are not apples enough to pay"; or, "is it not bad enough to 

 lose a crop without adding the expense of spraying?" Again, insects 

 have their ups and downs — seasons of great abundance and others when 

 it is said that there are none. Natural enemies and meteorological condi- 

 tions render the situation with reference to the numbers of most of our 

 injurious insects much like that of a child on a teter-board; now it is up 

 and now it is down. How many fruitgrowers are there who, when insects 

 arc at the top in number, say it no use to try to fight them, because they 

 are so abundant; and when they go to the bottom, so to speak, that it is not 

 necessary to spray or fight them, because there are not enough to do any 

 harm! It is the story of the man with the hole in his roof, told in a dif- 

 ferent way. When there is almost a total failure of the apple crop, it 

 is the very time of all others to spray. Ten times more good can be done 

 with the same amount of labor during such a season, than can be done 

 when the codlin moth is present in great numbers. When an insect is 

 reduced, through natural causes, to the minumum, is the very time of all 

 others to fight it. with all your might, with artificial measures. Your 

 enemy lies bound and almost helpless before you, and without effort on 

 your part, yet you are not willing to make the effort to restrain them. You 

 say such and such insects are gone and will not return. But they have 

 done this again and again in the past, and always returned and w^orked 

 as much or more injury as before. Just in proportion as insects are 

 reduced in numbers through natural causes, just in that or a greater pro- 

 portion should every one redouble his efforts to vanquish the remainder. 

 It is right here that "gumption" and science are needed in about equal 

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