hardy and will endure great cold, while strong caustic solutions likewise 

 affect them but little. From these eggs, which the individuals produce at 

 a prodigious rate, are produced the 3'oung, being born alive and ready to 

 reproduce again after five days, until at the end of the season the cycle 

 is finished and winter eggs again are laid. 



There exists a very large number of species of aphis, each species being 

 especially adapted to a certain family of plants, yet there are certain spe- 

 cies of aphis common to very distinct plants. Thus, an aphis affecting the 

 hop vine is also found on the plum, but such cases are exceptions to the 

 rule. 



Nearly all fruit trees are subject to the aphis; of the most formidable 

 and troublesome are those of the plum and the apple. 



PLUM APHIS. 



The plum aphis make their appearance in the month of INIay, when the 

 shoots are very sappy, and when taken in time can be checked so as to do 

 little harm; but to do this the most thorough spraying is necessary. As 

 one of the best remedies against them the rosin solution, given under the 

 head of woolly aphis, is recommended. 



WOOLLY APHIS. 



Eriosoma lanigera. (Figure No. 1). 



There is no insect so commonly met with in any old apple orchard as 

 this, but a description to new planters will not be out of place. 



In form, the woolly aphis resembles closely the green aphis, so common on roses and 

 other plants; but its color is reddish-brown, "and when crushed it yields a red juice, hence 

 the German name Blutlans, or blood louse. The insects are always surrounded by a whitish 

 woolly substance, hence the name " woolly " aphis. Like all aphides, this species increases 

 with astonishing rapidity, and only a few need be left on a tree to soon spread all over it. 

 While the i:)resence of the woolly aphis makes itself so conspicuous above ground on the 

 branches, covering them as if with snow, yet the most serious trouble lies out of sight, at 

 tlie roots, which, in our dry climate, they inhabit as freely as they do the branches, sapping 

 the vitality of the tree to such an extent that the fruit becomes small and valueless. If 

 allowed to go unchecked, the trees gradually die. To the apple tree the woolly aphis is 

 what the phylloxera is to the grapevine — sucking and causing swellings and knobs all over 

 the roots. 



Figure No. 1. 

 o, the gall; '>, larva; r,female; (?, leg; e, beak ;/, aiiteuiue of female ; 3, of larva. 



Naturalists maintain that there are two forms of woolly aphis, one living 

 on the roots and the other living on the branches, but they are gradually 



