55 



on still midsummer evenings. Possibly lanthorns or lamps might 

 be used with effect. But, under any circumstances, the moth is 

 less assailable than the grub or chrysalis. Several modes have been 

 adopted for this purpose. Bands of hay are tied round the trunk 

 of the apple tree before the apples begin to fall, and when the 

 grubs ascend the tree they are said to find these bands a congenial 

 shelter in which to form their cocoons and hybernate. These 

 bands are, during winter, carefully collected and burnt, thus 

 destroying all larvae which may have taken up their abode in them. 

 Another mode is by folding a strip of paper six or eight inches 

 wide round the trunk of the tree, and then tying it tightly round 

 with string at the upper part of the paper. The grub ascends the 

 trunk, gets under the paper, and when it reaches the upper part 

 where the string is tied round, its ascent is arrested, but it has a 

 hiding place formed between the paper and the bark, and there 

 rests and spins, and on removing the paper can be destroyed. 

 There remains one other mode which I believe to be the most 

 efiectual. The grub does not, as a rule, ascend higher than its 

 necessities drive it. Most trees have the roughest bark, and con- 

 sequently the best and least laboriously attained shelter for the 

 grub near the ground. There most of the grubs are to be found 

 on removing the rough pieces of bark. This is best done with a 

 piece of iron hoop ; a knife is too sharp and is apt to cut the under 

 bark of the tree. The trunk of the apple tree is their natural abode, 

 and there in their chrysalis state they are most easily destroyed. 

 The chrysalis will gradually fall with bark when rubbed off, and 

 this should be burnt or dug deeply into the ground. The grub 

 will, especially in crowded and overgrown gardens, occasionally 

 go up other trees or even hybernate in crevices in the wood of 

 fences, but if all those in their natural abodes in the apple trees 

 were destroyed, much would be done, towards keeping under this 

 scourge of the orchard. The grub is at present (May 10) spinning 

 its web in its home in the apple bark, and it is much more likely to 

 escape if it is disturbed now, than it' it is left till, becoming a 

 chrysalis, it loses its powers of locomotion, and then has its home 

 broken into by the careful gardener. In America, it appears, that 

 the grub is not dreaded in young orchards, presumably because the 

 bark of the tree is smooth and affords no shelter for the grub. The 

 grub so skilfully excavates its nest and surrounds itself with a 

 web, that it appears to me that it would be impossible by means of 

 any ordinary external application of lime water or other liquid to 

 destroy it. Slacked lime or flower of sulphur applied by bellows 

 could not reach it in its secure and cunningly devised abode. 

 The fumes of burning sulphur, if this could be confined round 

 the trunk of the tree by some form of petticoat, would, no 

 doubt, be as destructive to these creatures as it is to all animal 

 life, but I am not aware that this has ever been tried. Apples 

 which fall should be picked up as soon as possible, as the grub 

 rapidly escapes, and they should be put into water, or other means 

 should be taken to destroy the grub when it makes its exit from 

 the apple. The moth deposits its eggs in others of the pyrus family 

 as well as in the apple. It is, however, of little use for any one 

 person to attempt to destroy the insect, unless his neighbours are 



