Packard.] THE POPULATION OF AN APPLE TKEE. 175 



and cut off the brood. The eggs have so thick a shell 

 that it seems impossible that even great extremes of tem- 

 perature should destroy them. They are laid in broad 

 patches of from sixty to a hundred or more, standing up 

 side by side. They are glued together and to the bark or 

 paling by a grayish varnish, secreted by a gland in the end 

 of the bod}'. 



In dealing with this caterpillar the obvious preventive 

 measure is to keep the females from ascending the trunks 

 of the trees and laying their eggs on the branches. This is 

 done in a cheap and efficacious way by surrounding the 

 trunk of the tree with a band of tarred paper and anointing 

 it with printer's ink. If the ink is daily applied this is a 

 cheap and sure preventive. Another one, involving more 

 expense but less time and trouble, is to surround the base 

 of the trunk with a wooden trough kept filled with oil or 

 ink ; or it may be raised and made of zinc, and filled with 

 whale oil. But all these methods are useless unless the 

 shiftless and careless are compelled to cooperate with those 

 who take pains to keep their trees free from the caterpillars. 

 "We have ventured to suggest, in our first "Report on the 

 Injurious and Beneficial Insects of Massachusetts," that it 

 is only by combination between farmers and orchardists that 

 these and other pests can be kept under. As we then said, 

 "The matter can be best reached b}' legislation ; we have 

 fish and game laws, why should wc not frame a law provid- 

 ing that farmers, and all those owning a garden or orchard, 

 sliould cooperate in taking preventive measures against inju- 

 rious insects, such as early or late planting of cereals to 

 avert the attacks of the Wheat midge and Hessian fly, the 

 burning of stubl)le in the autumn and spring to destroy'" 

 the joint worm, the combined use of proper remedies against 

 the canker worm, the various cut worms, and other noxious 

 caterpillars. A law carried out by a proper state entomo- 

 logical constabulary, if it may be so designated, could com- 



15 



