238 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



estin*^ to note just what this bird eats. The animal and 

 vegetable matter eaten just about balance. Of the former, 

 ants (thirty-six per cent) greatly predominate. Beetles (five 

 per cent] are not nearly so extensively eaten as by some 

 of the other species. Flies (three per cent) of various kinds 

 are often taken, largely crane-flies. Caterpillars amount to 

 two per cent, spiders to the same figure, grasshoppers, 

 crickets, bugs, wasps and May flies together to a similar per 

 cent. Vegetable matter is about half (twenty -six per cent) 

 fruit, including berries of dogwood and Virginia creeper, 

 wild black cherries, blackberries and raspberries. Other vege- 

 table substances taken were a small amount of poison ivy and 

 mullein seeds, juniper berries and buds, and a great deal of 

 cambium. While there is nothing very objectionable to the 

 above record, the real harm done by this bird is in its habit of 

 drilling holes in the bark of trees so as to form girdles of 

 punctures which cause the ultimate death of the tree in severe 

 attacks. The trees mostly injured by this bird are the -apple, 

 maple, red oak, white and mountain ash. This puncturing is 

 done to secure the sap which oozes out and is greedily sipped 

 up by the bird, as well as to form an easy foraging ground 

 against the many insects which are attracted to it by its sweet- 

 ness. But as the bird is numerous only in forested areas, 

 where trees can be spared, it is doubtful whether it does suffi- 

 cient harm to warrant its destruction. 



DISEASES OF THE APPLE. 



BY C. W. PUGSLEY, LINCOLN. 



It is the object of this paper to present the diseases of the 

 apple in a plain and practical way, and only the diseases of 

 economic importance to fruit growers in Nebraska will be dis- 

 cussed. Each disease will be treated under the following heads : 

 Cause; Description; How spread; Treatment. 



For the benefit of those who wish to gain a more thorough 

 knowledge of a disease than this paper affords I have appended 

 a partial list of publications treating of various diseases. I 

 have also added a partial list of references to writings treating 

 of insect enemies. In these lists are included only those 



