152 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [10] 



limbs of fruit trees show areas of cliflferent sizes, varying from a 

 fraction of an inch to several inches, in which the sapwood is 

 killed so as to disclose patches of the dead inner wood from over 

 which the bark has broken away, leaving deeply depressed dead 

 portions, around the margin of which the annual growth of sap- 

 wood following the injiiry builds up an irregular wall. 



An extraordinary multiplication of a common fruit-tree pest, 

 the apple-tree tent-caterpillar, CUsiocampa Americaiia, during the 

 past summer in the State of New York was such a phenomenal 

 event as to draw wide-spread attention to it. There is no record 

 of its ever having appeared before in such enormous numbers 

 over so extended a territory. Apple orchards in the eastern 

 counties of the State, and in portions of New England and New 

 Jersey, were only saved from defoliation through much earnest 

 labor. Where it had not been thought necessary to contend with 

 the caterpillar, as in its occurrence on the wild cherry and other 

 trees upon which it feeds, the leaves were eaten to the last- fragment, 

 and the defoliation was as complete as if they had been swept by 

 fire. In passing through the country a prominent feature of the 

 landscape was the multitude of these leafless trees in midsummer, 

 bearing in the forks of their branches the white web nests to the 

 number often of from twenty to forty in a single tree, which the 

 caterpillars had built up for their shelter at night and during 

 rains. 



In connection with the above reference to fruit pests, it may be 

 of interest to state that injuries from the same source have been 

 reported in England the present year, to even a greater extent 

 than with us. Miss Ormerod, the eminent entomologist of the 

 Eoyal Agricultural Society of England has written me : " The 

 orchards in our fruit-growing counties were in some cases devas- 

 tated by the hordes of Lepidopterous caterpillars of various kinds 

 that swept off the foliage — in some instances even killing the trees." 

 Mr. Charles Whitehead, Agricultural Adviser to the Agricultural 

 Department of England, has recently reported as follows : " In 

 many of the principal fruit-producing districts, caterpillars have 

 lately caused most serious injury to apple, pear, plum, damson, 

 filbert, and other fruit trees, so that in some cases the whole crop 

 has been lost. When the blossom buds and leaf buds began to 

 unfold, it was seen that they were attacked by legions of cater- 

 pillars. Soon the blossoms and leaves were entirely devoured, or 



