WHITE ANTS INJURING THE ORANGE. 123 



about the collar and root, the bark is found eaten away and the tree 

 perhaps completelj' girdled. 



The growing wood of plants is not the natural food of Termitrs, and 

 is only attacked by them under exceptional circumstances. Thus in 

 orange groves they may be impelled to escai)e from the heated soil by 

 excavating galleries into the root bark of the trees, the moisture and 

 coolness of which are grateful to tbem. It is to be remarked that they 

 at first confine their galleries to the soft outer layers, and only subse- 

 quently penetrate and feed upon the heart wood as the tree dies in con- 

 sequence of their injuries. 



Eecently transplanted trees whose roots have suffered mutilation, 

 young groves set out on new laud, and frees planted too deep or which 

 have too much earth heaped about the crown, are exposed to danger 

 from Termites, but old and well-established trees are little liable to their 

 attacks, unless from disease or other injuries dead and unhealthy wood 

 is present to invite their entrance. 



Their Work easily distinguished from that of other Insects. — The galleries 

 of Termites are seldom circular, but most frequently i)resent a series of 

 broad and shallow chambers, often overlying one another and connected 

 by short passages. The walls of the galleries are always lined with a 

 a layer of comminuted wood, which gives them a mottled appearance, 

 very characteristic, and distinct from those of ants or other boring in- 

 sects, and renders them easily recognizable in the absence of the Ter 

 mites themselves. These latter are usually present, however, as they 

 seldom leave a piece of wood in which they have effected a lodgment 

 until every portion of its solid interior has been eaten aw.iy and re- 

 duced to powder, unless, indeed, the material becomes too dry lor their 

 further existence. Their entrance galleries are always beneath the sur- 

 face of the ground or under cover of other material, for they never ex- 

 pose themselves to light. 



In living orange trees, as has been said, their first attack is made at 

 the base of the trunk, just beneath the surface of the ground. Not 

 unfrequently this is betrayed, before extensive damage has been done, 

 by a slight exudation of sap from the wounded bark, which moi^<tens 

 and cakes the ground at the surface. 



Sources of danger — precautions. — Stumps and buried Roots of 

 forest Trees. — So abundant are Termites in the South that no buried 

 Iragments of wood long escape their visits. The hardest live oak, and 

 the most resinous ])ine yield in time to these .scavengers. The decaying 

 stumps and roots of Ibrest trees, therefore, form an element of danger 

 to orange groves planted on newly cleared land, that cannot well be 

 avoided; but the risk may be reduced to a minimum by removing the 

 stumps, particularly those of oak and other hard woods, which stand 

 nearer than five or six feet to any orange trees, and by care in removing 

 chips and severed roots from contact with or too close proximity to the 

 young trees. 



