STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 433 



In the papers No. L and 2, read at 3'our meeting in 1885 and '86, I 

 have described the Apple. Gouger and Codling Moth and their work 

 upon the fruit, and suggested such remedies as are known to be bene- 

 ficial. I am not ea^otistical enough to think that the papers have brought 

 about any great amount of good, but I am happy to be able to report, 

 that at my own place, and in such portions of the State as I have been 

 able to take observations, the depredations of these two insects were 

 much less in the last season than for many years before. I have but 

 little time to devote to these observations and therefore cannot give 

 positive reasons for it. It is a well known fact that when any one 

 species becomes so numerous as to threaten the extinction of the 

 food plants upon which they subsist, nature interferes and sends some 

 enemy or parasite to prey upon them, and restore a balance by reduc- 

 ing their numbers. I will mention these causes that may have com- 

 bined together to effect the decrease, viz : Drouth, birds and insect 

 parasites. I place drouth first bec^.use the evidence proves its being 

 sponsor for the others. 



The summer of 1886 was noted for its drouth throughout the greater 

 portion of this State and may have been favorable for the multiplying 

 of the minute parasite insects that are here to a certain extent m 

 all seasons, causing them to become so numerous as to keep down the 

 injurious insects in 1887. 1886 was favorable also for the nesting of 

 birds, but not favorable for plants or grasses in uncultivated lands, 

 or fruits under the same conditions. There being nothing in the for- 

 ests for insectiverous birds to feed upon, they were driven to the cul- 

 tivated fields, orchards and gardens, about the abodes of men, and while 

 their destruction of cultivated fruit was very great, they doubtless made 

 up for it in a great measure by clearing our ground of the injurious 

 insects. The summer of 1887 has been equally dry and the birds more 

 plentiful than known before for many years. Therefore I think we 

 may reasonably hope that some of our insect pests may not be as nu- 

 merous for a year or two. 



We have concluded to take for the subject of this paper, the Round 

 Headed Apple Tree Borer, (Saperda Candida 0/ Fahr S. hivittata. Say,} 

 an insect that is injurious to the tree rather than the fruit. There is 

 another of the borers that is found working in our apple tree more or 

 less, the flat headed borer {Chrysobothris Femorata Fahr) or Apple 

 Bupreptis, but I think this first the most injurious one with which 

 the orchardist has to contend. The beetle or perfect insect is not 

 often seen because it flies only at uight, but is easily recognized from: 

 the following brief description : It is long and narrow, varying fromj 

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