THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 10! 



known to entomologists that many caterpillars will thrive exceed- 

 ingly on leaves that have been thickly sprinkled with sulphur. 



Vigilance is the price of reward, and as it is always easier to pre- 

 vent than to cure, it were well for the owners of young orchards, in 

 neighborhoods where the Canker-worm is known to exist, to keep a 

 6harp lookout for it; so that upon its first appearance the evil may 

 be nipped in the bud. In the same manner that it is exterminated in 

 the individual orchard, in like manner, it may, by concert of action, 

 be exterminated from any given locality. When once the worms are 

 on a tree, a good jarring will suspend them all in mid- air, when the 

 best way to kill them is by swinging a stick above them, which breaks 

 the web, and causes them to fall to the ground ; when they may be 

 prevented from ascending the tree, by the methods already described, 

 or by strewing straw on the ground and setting fire to it. 



One word in commendation of late fall plowing and the use of 

 hogs. A good deal has been said both for and against fall plowing, 

 and the following discussion which took place at the November (1S68) 

 meeting of the Alton (Ills.) Horticultural Society, will afford a sample 

 of the different opinions held by individuals: 



Dr. Long took the ground that fall plowing was one of the best 

 and surest means of eradicating those insects which stay in the ground 

 over winter. He said, some five or six years ago my orchard was 

 badly infested with the Canker-worm ; by late cultivation, I almost, 

 if not entirely, got rid of them. 



Dr. Hull— I do not believe that fall plowing will destroy the lar- 

 vae of insects to any extent. I have dug up frozen lumps containing 

 larvae that were not affected by freezing. I think the Canker-worm 

 will not. spread here as in New England. 



J. Huggins— I have been led to believe — contrary to Dr. Hull's 

 statement— that they will spread, and feel that there is great danger 

 of their spreading. I believe fall plowing a great aid in the extermi- 

 nation of them. Cites a case where they have been almost entirely 

 destroyed by late plowing, in an orchard that was nearly ruined by 

 them. 



Dr. Hull — If it be true that they will spread, why is it that none 

 of Dr. Long's neighbors have them? He says he was badly overrun 

 with them, and the fact that his neighbors were not, I think confirm- 

 ation of my statement that they will not spread. 



Dr. Long — My brother's orchard, adjoining mine, had double as 

 many as my own. He fall plowed, and has very few left. He also 

 cites the case of an old orchard, in this section, that was almost de- 

 stroyed by them, but fall plowing has almost, if not entirely, destroyed 

 them. 



The following item from the New York Weekly Tribune of Feb- 

 ruary 2Gth, 1869, also bears on this point: 



Canker-worms Destroyed by Plowing. — Mr. McNeil Witherton, 

 in answer to W. V. Monroe's request : I will state that I think that the 

 Canker-worm can be destroyed by plowing the ground where they 

 are, late in the fall. The 2^th of Nov., 1867, 1 was at my son David's 

 in Wisconsin. He told me that the Canker-worms were in his orchard, 

 and had injured his apple trees very much the past season; that a 

 man who owns a nursery and keeps apple trees for sale, went into the 

 orchard and examined the trees and worms, and said it was the Can- 



