-208 APPLE-TREE CATERPILLAR — CHERRY TREES AS DECOYS. 



about tliree hundred worms, and each worm, as already stated, 

 devours two leaves daily. Six hundred leaves are each day 

 stripped from each tree on which there is one of these nests. 

 An hour's labor therefore saves to the orchard six thousand 

 leaves daily, for the space of two or three weeks. Where else 

 can an hour's labor be so profitably devoted as in destroying 

 these worms? Surely men who are such close economists, when 

 they are apprised of these facts, will never allow one of these 

 nests to remain upon their trees for a single day. 



Some persons do not allow any wild cherry trees to grow on 

 their lands, in consequence of the numbers of these caterpil- 

 lars which they breed. But the orchards of such men are 

 probabiy about as much infested with these insects, coming in 

 to them from the fields and forests of their neighbors, as they 

 would be were wild cherries growing upon their own lands. 

 And valuable as the timber of this tree is for cabinet work, we 

 cannot recommend its extermination. It appears to be the 

 young, thrifty growing trees of this species which are the espe- 

 cial favorites of these insects. Large old trees are rarely infest- 

 ed to a great extent, especially when trimmed of their limbs to 

 a considerable height from the ground. And even if every wild 

 cherry tree in our country was cut down and not a caterpillar's 

 nest was tolerated in any of our orchards, these insects would con- 

 tinue to sustain themselves, though no doubt in greatly dimin- 

 ished numbers, upon the other species of cherry and upon the 

 thorn apples and other trees and shrubs on which they are able 

 to subsist and thrive. 



As the wild black cherry is so much preferred to the apple or 

 any other tree by these insects, and as it is easier to destroy a 

 hundred nests upon one tree than a quarter of that number 

 where they are scattered upon different trees, it strikes me that 

 this tree may perhaps be turned to a valuable account as a decoy 

 for these insects. If one or two cherry trees are standing in the 

 fences on each of the sides of an orchard, the eggs of these 

 insects it is probable will nearly all be deposited upon these 

 trees which otherwise will be scattered over all the trees in the 

 orchard. These trees can be kept trimmed and headed down so 

 that all parts of them will be readily accessible. The ends of 



