14 * REPORT OF No. 19 



chickadees may be kept around an orcliard or garden by helping them 

 out with a little food during the winter. A good plan is to hang some suet 

 in the trees. 



The remedies then for the codling-worm are, first, spraying to get rid 

 of the first brood, which can be exterminated, or nearly so. Spraying at the 

 proper time and in the proper manner, as has been described this afternoon, 

 should be resorted to, and also the removal of all fallen fruit. For the 

 second brood, there is the bandaging. Then, after that come the woodpeckers 

 and other birds. We cannot trust much to parasites, but we may be quite 

 sure that our enterprising Minister of Agriculture will use every effort to 

 bring the parasites, if they are found to be effective, into this country and 

 make use of thqm here. 



Dr. Fletcher said that parasites are not useless by any means. There 

 are internal parasites as well as external parasites, and some of these para- 

 sites would be able to reach the worm in the apple. The larvae of the large 

 Pigeon Tremex, which bores deep in the solid wood of maples, is parasitized 

 by the two large Thalessas. There are several parasites which are also able 

 to find out their hosts in the wood of trees. We do not know everything 

 yet about parasites, but we must not say that they will not do this work. 

 There are several parasites of the Codling-worm, as Dr. Brodie has told us, 

 and when we find parasites in large numbers we may expect to obtain some 

 results. To give an instance — one of the striking outbreaks at Ottawa was 

 an aphis on birch trees, which was so abundant that the whole of the tree 

 was covered with a black fungus, growing on the honey dew exuded by the 

 aphis. The insect was abundant in June and July. Then we found that 

 all over these trees affected by the plant aphis there were myriads of lady- 

 bird beetles, and these beetles were so numerous that they wiped out the 

 whole lot of aphis. We found ten to twenty of their pupke on a single 

 birch leaf. What became of all those lady-bird beetles? Perhaps from a 

 branch holding, say 50 leaves, we did not get 50 lady-bird beetles, but got 

 a great many thousands of another parasite, forty to fifty of a little hjpo- 

 parasite from a single pupa. Thus nature brings back again the balance 

 by reducing the excessive number of beetles. Where one pupa produced a 

 beetle, forty-nine never produced beetles but produced parasites. We do not 

 know yet what can be effected by a Codling-worm parasite, but we must not 

 give it up as hopeless. , It is most hopeful. As Dr. Bethune showed us, 

 though, we must not be too sanguine. With regard to the worms that burrow 

 in the bark beneath the bandages, I find a brush with wire for bristles a 

 convenient instrument for removing them. One was supplied with my fur- 

 nace and I have made use of it to scrape off the. worms on apple trees. Time 

 can be saved with a proper implement, and a wire brush of this kind is 

 good. The codling-worm does not change to a pupa inside its cocoon at 

 once, but remains as a larva until just before it is going to emerge. 



Mr. Scott : How do you kill the cocoons in the burlap bandages them- 

 selves ? 



Dr. Fletcher : It is rather a troublesome matter. One man who ban- 

 dages his trees has at the side of his orchard an India rubber wringing 

 machine and runs them through that, or they may be thrown into scalding 

 water. The burlaps are all taken off into a wheelbarrow and dropped into 

 large open caldron used for sugarmaking ; they are taken out at once and 

 put back again. These are the only two methods known to me. 



Mr. Nash : I saw a man screw the wringer on the side of the wheel- 

 barrow, and go through the orchard with it. 



