182 



Forty-fifth Report on the State Museum. 



in young peach trees. The principal danger seems to be 

 while the trees are young and tender. If one has but a few 

 trees, perhaps the best way would be to seai-ch the borer out and 

 destroy it, but during a part of the life of this pest it is very small 

 and difficult to find so close to the ground; besides, in large orchards it 

 would be an exceedingly slow and expensive process. 



I see in the Scientific American, copied from the N. E. Homestead^ 

 that an effectual treatment is to " make a mixture of wood ashes and 

 water, in the proportion of one quart of ashes to a pail of water. 

 Stir well; make a little ridge of earth around the tree, a few inches 

 from it, and pour in the mixture. It will soak into the worm-holes, 

 and will kill them every time." The writer says he has used it for 

 years successfully. He says that it may be necessary to do it twice the 

 first year, but after that a very little care will keep the trees free from 

 them. For want of ashes a thin solution of lime will do, he says. 

 Why not heap a quart of ashes around the tree and let the rains supply 

 the water ? Now what I want to know is, whether this treatment has 

 been sufficiently tested to justify me or any one else in depending on 

 it in a large way — a thousand trees or more ? 



Would not an application of whitewash be as good a treatment as 

 could be desired, after the trees are two or three years old — or thick 

 soap-suds, applied with a brush or a rag? The first year the bark 

 would no doubt be too tender for the whitewash. 



Is it not found that it greatly increases the life and vitality of the 

 peach tree to shorten in the branches every year after the season's 

 growth is completed? Peach trees are generally short-lived; it is 

 desirable to prolong their lives if we caa, and such treatment will 

 probably make them less liable to break down, owing to the disposition 

 of the limbs to grow to great length, with most of the fruit far from 

 the trunk of the tree. 



It is not a difficult task to control this insect, ^Egeria exitiosa, the 

 Sannina exitiosa of many recent writers, if the proper means are 



Fio, 32, —The peach-tree borer, Sannina kxitiosa (Say): 1, the male moth; 2, the female moth. 



taken for it. It is possible to prevent its injuries to a great extent 

 by the old method of searching for the presence of, and cutting 

 out, the larvtw There are those who contend that the destruction 

 of the insect is the only proper thing to do, since by the applica- 



