r8gS. 



* • GARDENING. 



217 



scarcely any change in our stereotyped 

 biography ot this pest for halt' a century 

 or more previous to the present decade. 

 In 1878 a practical fruit grower acciden- 

 tally discovered that when he sprayed his 

 trees with Paris green, he "not only rid 

 the orchard of canker-worms, but that 

 apples on the sprayed part were much 

 less eaten by codling-moths." It was 

 proved that one could kill a large per- 

 centage of the apple- worms by applying 

 a poison spray just after the blossoms 

 fall. This was soon demonstrated by 

 many experimenters; the late Professor 

 Lodeman satisfied himself that often at 

 least 70% of the apples, that would be 

 ruined by the worms could be saved by 

 spraying. He could not see j'ist how it 

 was accomplished, and often appealed to 

 me for an explanation. I could find no 

 definite observations recorded upon the 

 habits of the newly hatched worms; and 

 it was only quite recently that anyone 

 had ever seen the eggs of the codling- 

 moth. My studies have resulted in some 

 new notions about the habits of the 

 insect. 



All are familiar with the caterpillar 

 stage of this pest, but not so many have 

 seen the adult insect. A new and more 

 conspicuous difference between the adult 

 m^le and female has been discovered. In 

 the under side of each front wing of the 

 males only there is a narrow elongated, 

 blackish spot. Thus one can usually 

 determine the sex of the codling-moth at 

 a glance by the presence or absence of 

 these black markings. 



It is about the egg andthe habitsof the 

 newly hatched worm that the most new 

 light has been shed by recent investiga- 

 tions. The usual stereotyped statement, 

 as taken from our leading textbooks on 

 entomology, has been, "The moth lays 

 its eggs singly in the maturing blossom 

 of the apple just as the petals fall. As 

 soon as the caterpillar hatches it burrows 

 into the apple." I have now learned that 

 the eggs are thin, oval, scale-like objects, 

 not quite as large as the head of a pin, re- 

 sembling a minute drop of milk; instead of 

 being on or in the calyx, they are on the 

 truit near the calyx in old curculio scars, 

 nearthestem, or even on the leaves of the 

 tree. Thus thecommonly accepted notion 

 regarding the egg-laying habits ot this 

 insect must be discarded. We now know 

 that the eggs are not laid until a week or 

 more after the petals fall from most vari- 

 eties of apples and not when the petals 

 fall, as was the common notion. 



The little apple-worm crawls about the 

 surface of the fruit until it finds the calyx, 

 stem, or where the leaf touches; no feed- 

 ing is done on the outside of the fruit 

 except to gnaw a minute entrance hole 

 through the skin. More often the little 

 worm squeezes itself through between the 

 two calyx lobes and gets its first meals 

 in the blossom end. As nearly 80% enter 

 here when we spray, soon after the blos- 

 soms fall we deposit some arsenic in the 

 calyx-cavity, where nature kindly takes 

 care of it for us by closing up the calyx 

 lobes until ten days or two weeks later, 

 when the little apple worm includes it in 

 the menu of its first few meals. We can 

 thus hope to reach with a poison spray 

 only those apple-worms which enter the 

 blossom ends of the forming fruits in the 

 spring. To do this the application must 

 be made soon after the blossoms fall, 

 when the calyx is open. I can conceive of 

 no possible way in which a majority of 

 the 159! or 20% of the worms which enter 

 the fruit at some other point in the spring 

 and all the worms of the subsequent 

 broods can be effectively reached with a 

 poison spray. The falling of the blossoms 



is the signal to begin spraying; the clos- 

 ing of the calyx lobes, a week or two 

 later, is the signal to stop. 



Another and familiar insect pest which 

 has received considerable attention at the 

 insectary of the Cornell Experiment Sta- 

 tion is the peach borer. It is an American 

 insect, and for more than a hundred years 

 it has been recognized as a very serious 

 obstacle to the growing of peaches in this 

 country. Almost everyone who has 

 grown this luscious fruit is only to famil- 

 iar with the telltale gummy mass found 

 around the base of peach trees in which 

 the grub-like caterpillar of this pest is at 

 work. 



The life history and habits of the insect 

 were fairly well known to the earlier writ- 

 ers. In the latitude of New York the 

 borers mature late in June; they spin a 

 cocoon of silk and particles of bark, near 

 the entrance of their burrows. The females 

 soon after hatching, begin to lay their 

 eggs on the bark of the peach trees. The 

 caterpillars hatch in from seven to ten 

 days, and at once begin their destructive 

 work under the bark, at or below the sur- 

 face of the ground. They continue to 

 work until cold weather sets in, when 

 they ensconse themselves in a loose 

 eocoon-like home near the surface of the 

 soil, and there remain all winter without 

 feeding. This winter habit seems to have 

 been only recently observed. In May 

 they begin to work again, and do the 

 most damage in June. 



After three years careful tests of all the 

 substances which gave promise of being 

 effective against the borer at the Cornell 

 Experiment Station, twenty-one different 

 things were tried. The following were 

 ineffectual: Carbon bisulphide, asafcc-tida 

 and aloes, lime salt and sulphur wash, 

 resin wash (two applications), strong 

 solution of hard soap, Hale's wash (two 

 applications), tallow, which formed a 

 thick and complete coating lasting until 

 the next year, tansy grown around the 

 base of the trees, whale oil soap (two 

 applications), whitewash, paint made 

 with lime and linseed oil, and wire gauze 

 protector, which should be theoretically 

 a perfect mechanical protector. 



Six substances tried proved partially 

 effective; of these two might be termed 

 mechanical, the old "mounding system," 

 and tarred roofing paper carefully tied 

 around the base and extending below the 

 ground; this seemed to protect against 

 two-thirds of the borers. White paint 

 kept out from one-third to one-half of the 

 insects. White paint and Paris green killed 

 many of the young trees. Coal tar was 

 very effectual, only a few borers succeed- 

 ing in getting started in trees brushed 

 with it, and it did no injury to the trees. 

 The following proved sure death to the 

 trees: Paris green mixed with glue, rau- 

 penleim (German caterpillar lime) and 

 dendrolene. 



Nothing was found which would keep 

 all the borers out and not injure the trees. 

 A wash which has to be applied more 

 than once a year will not pay, for onecan 

 dig out borers quicker. The "digging 

 out" process is certainly the surest yet 

 devised, and can be done with about as_ 

 little expenditure of time and money as it 

 will take to apply washes or mechanical 

 contrivances thoro ghly enough to keep 

 the borers out. Although we did not 

 accomplish our ideal, the experiment did 

 demonstrate what is often equally valua- 

 ble and important to know, that is, to 

 know what not to do. 



G N CARRUTHERS. 



The five bound volumes of Gardening 

 ate worth many times their cost at this 

 time of year. 



WORKERS IN HORTICULTURE, VI. 



Mr. G. N. Carruthets, an account of 

 whose home, near Oberlin, Ohio, appears 

 elsewhere in this issue, has been for many 

 years deeply interested in all that per- 

 tains to practical gardening, ornamental 

 as well as useful. He is a graduate of 

 Oberlin College, having worked his way 

 through that institution, served two and 

 a half years as an officer of the United 

 States, and taught or superintended pub- 

 lic schools and private for over a quarter 

 of a century. He is now engaged in horti- 

 culture, and finds much pleasure in the 

 management of an eighty-five acre farm, 

 devoting his leisure to the adornment 

 and improvement of the home grounds. 

 Mr. Carruthers is president of the Lor- 

 rain County Horticultural Society, and 

 has been unsparing in his efforts to make 

 it a power for good. 



Fruits and Vegetables. 



fl NEW MUSHROOM SPAWN. 



It is a well-known fact that selection is 

 the most powerful agency in the improve- 

 ment of cultivated plants. The slightest 

 variation is contemplated by every horti- 

 culturist with the greatest interest, in the 

 hope that a new variety may spring up, 

 which would prove better in one particu- 

 lar or another than the types already 

 known. It is through the agency of self- 

 fertilization or of artificial crossing that 

 almost all the improved plants (sport 

 varieties excepted) have been obtained. 



But as regards mushrooms these things 

 are altogether different; no flowers, no 

 sexes and no possibility of hybridization. 

 The plant itself consists of a thin and sub- 

 terraneous mycelium, upon which now 

 and then appear a few round bodies; these 

 are the stroma or "buttons" which will 

 by and by develop into what we com- 

 monly call a mushroom. The mushrooms 

 belong only to the upper classes of fungi, 

 ascomycetes and basidiomycetes, the 

 common mushroom or Psalliota (Aga- 

 ricus) campestris belonging to the last 

 named class. Now, the mushroom bears 

 spores, which have the appearance of 



