26 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



penny nails. After I put the tin on, I took lime and sand and made 

 a thin mortar and poured it in on the rope to stop any holes that 

 might be left. When the tin gets full below, they will get on the tin, 

 but won't go down above to get on the tree. I saw them on the tin 

 (that is, the moth,) but did not see one above it. I have known some 

 to try it on a few trees, and condemn it because it was not successful. 

 If the trees don't stand more than two rods apart, the wind will carry 

 plenty of the worms from one tree to another to strip it. My trees 

 stand fully two rods apart, and in 1872 they were one complete mass of 

 webs, made by the wind carrying the worms from one tree to another. 

 My trees measure from two to four teet in circumference, and it did 

 not cost me twelve cents for each tree. 



If the trunk is kept clean below the trap, and an application of 

 kerosene made to the eggs from time to time, there will be no neces- 

 sity for plastering the upper part of the trap. It is more difficult to 

 check the asceni of the young worms than their parents, because of 

 their minute size and power to travel over the smoothest surfaces. 

 The best way to do it is by greasing the eggs and thus preventing 

 their hatching. If the tin is smeared with a mixture of equal parts 

 of kerosene and castor oil, it will prove still more effectual. 



The Paris green remedy has been effectually employed to destroy 

 the worms when once they are defoliating trees; but its use should 

 be discouraged, except on tall shade trees, where in an emergency 

 the green in liquid, thrown up by a garden pump, may be of great 

 service. The worms should not be allowed to reach the leaves ; 

 and, where they have thus been allowed, it is best on a calm day to 

 strew the ground lightly with straw, give the tree a good jarring — as 

 suggested by Dr. Le Baron — cut loose the suspended worms by means 

 of a pole, and then set fire to the straw. A Canker-worm holocaust 

 will be the result, and with a little care the tree need not be injured. 



The following description of a trough, taken from the report of a 

 committee chosen to award a premium of $100, offered, not long since, 

 by the Essex (Mass.) Agricultural Society, for a " new, cheap and 

 effectual remedy against the ravages of the Canker-worm," will prove 

 of value to those who can not conveniently obtain the tin strips above 

 described : 



The protector used by Mr. Sawyer is simply a trough or gutter 

 laid upon the ground around the tree, and filled with coal tar from the 

 gas-works. The troughs used by Mr. Sawyer are made of two-by-three 

 joists, sawn from two-inch plank. A channel an inch or more deep 

 and an inch and a-half wide, is grooved out, and the stock is then 

 sawed off in a mitre-box at suitable lengths for different sized trees, 

 and the pieces nailed together, one side slightly, so that it can be 

 easily removed when placed around the tree. A square box or trough 

 is thus made which is laid level on the ground around the tree. The 

 space between trough and tree* trunk is filled with dirt, the trough 

 itself filled with coal tar from the gasworks, and the work is done. 



