APPLE-TRUNK BORER HOW DISCOVERED. 23 



■done any injury to the tree. It is the practice of Esquire Bald- 

 win to wash the butts of his trees with strong lye, the last of 

 August. The newly hatched grubs are now but slightly sunk in 

 the bark. The lye penetrates the small orifices which they have 

 formed and destroys them. He makes it an invariable rule thus 

 to wash his trees every year, and since he commenced this treat - 

 aaent it is very rare that he has found a borer in them. 



But if, through the pressure of other avocations during the busy 

 ■summer months, the orchard has been neglected and these borers 

 have penetrated the wood, they should still be carefully searched 

 out and destroyed, for they continue to cause irritation and injury 

 to the tree so long as they remain in it. Before the fall of the 

 leaf, trees which are badly infested may be known by their 

 sickly, chl orotic appearance. Mr. Ashton informs me, an expe- 

 rienced person can easily determine when young trees are suffer- 

 ing from the borer, by taking hold of them and swaying them to 

 and fro. Infested trees, when thus handled, feel as though they 

 were loose at the root, in consequence, no doubt, of having so 

 many of their fibers cut off by the worm; whilst unaffected trees 

 feel more stiff, and as though they were firmly bound by the soil. 

 But at all seasons of the year the presence of this worm can be 

 most readily and certainly ascertained by examining the surface 

 of the ground where it is in contact with the tree. The small 

 heap of sawdust-like castings remains piled up against the bark, 

 covering the orifice from whence they were extruded, for months 

 afterwards. Therefore, in warm days in winter and early spring, 

 when almost every one is most at leisure and has the strongest 

 relish for some out-door work of this kind, the snow being off the 

 ground, these borers may be hunted with success. 



Various expedients for killing the worm, such as injecting dif- 

 ferent solutions, plugging up the hole, thrusting a wire into it, 

 &c, have been proposed, many of them, I must think, by persons 

 who had very little practical acquaintance with the subject on 

 which they were writing — the opening into the burrow being at 

 the surface of the earth in most cases, so low down and difficult 

 of access by grass and often by suckers or young shoots growing 

 in front of it, as to render a resort to many of these remedies very 



