PROCEEDINGS, 1916. 33 



with a dark head and biting mouth parts. The tunnel made by it usually extends to 

 the core of the apple and is filled with dirty frass, and the opening by which the larva 

 leaves the apple is usually near the calyx end, and is usually surrounded with frass. 



In spite of the great congestion of the orchards in the Annapolis Valley we are so 

 far north that the codling moth is a pest of very minor importance, and we seldom find 

 over 5 per cent of the apples in an orchard infested. 'I sometimes think that spraying 

 helps to control it in the unsprayed as well as in the sp*ayed orchards, for, as near as I 

 can determine, the codling moth is decreasing in the unsprayed orchards as the pro- 

 port on of sprayed orchards about 4 hem becomes greater and greater. 



The last of the biting insects attacking the apple in Nova Scotia and one that be- 

 longs to the same class as the codling moth is the dock-sawfly, Taxnus nigrisoma, 

 which we have found in one locality do'ng serious damage to the apple; in one orchard 

 1-3 of the Baldwin apples contained from one to five larvae of this saw^y hibernating 

 under the skin of the fruit. The entrance to the fruit is made by the full grown larva 

 eating an incredibly small hole through the skin of the apple and crawling in through 

 this small entrance, burrowing out a roomy cavity near the s v in, plugging the entrance 

 with frass and there hibernating. The larva may be distinguished from that of the cod- 

 ling moth by its being near the surface of the apple, with only sufficient of a burrow 

 or cavity about it to accommodate it comfortably; by the absence of frass in the cavity, 

 and by the color of the larvae which is a bluish green, as well as by the fact that, being a 

 sawfly larva, it bears eight pairs of prolegs instead of fve as in the codling moth. The 

 insect while not abundant is found all over the orchard district, at least, and may rea- 

 sonably be expected to become a pest where its food plants, the curled and broad leaved 

 docks are allowed to become abundant in orchards. 



These five types of iniury are all that will be found from biting insects on the apple 

 fruit in the province and each, as it predominates in a orchard, indicates a slight modi- 

 fication of the ordinary spraying program. Where budmoths are bad an extra quantity 

 of poison applied with a drive nozzle at 200 pounds pressure should be used in the two 

 sprays before <"he b^ssoms Where the fruit worms predominate the spray before the 

 blossoms should be applied with a drive nozzle iust as closely before the blossoms open 

 as possible, the mechanical action of the driving spray in knocking the young fruit 

 worms off to the ground being almost as important in the ! r control as the e^ect of the 

 poison in the spray. This spray should be followed by another very thorough one soon 

 after the b'ossom*, for, in order to control fruit worms, they must be poisoned while 

 they are still young and are feeding on the leaves, and before they start feeding on the 

 fruit. Where the tussock predominates, as it did in many orchards this year, we have 

 to follow the recognized rule of getting the poison to the insect as soon after it emerges 

 f-om the egg as possible. This, in the case of the tussock , means adding poison to the 

 last summer spray or that applied about July 1st. UnliVe the budmoth and fruit worms 

 which are pretty constant from year to year, the tussock is periodical, becoming numer- 

 ous for two or three years and then, being controlled by its natural enemies, disappear- 

 ng for a period of four or five years. We are now in the second year of the present out- 

 break which will continue for at least another year. In controlling the codling moth we 

 pay particular attention to the spray applied immediately after the blossoms, but we 

 find that it is also to a great extent controlled by the sprays immediately before and two 

 weeks after the blossoms, which is no more than one would expect from the fact that 

 the eggs are deposited over such a very long period in Nova Scotia, and that the young 

 larva usually feeds on the leaf for a period before attacking the apple. In regard to 

 the dock-sawfly the remedy is very simple. The larvae will feed only on dock and pre- 

 vent'ng dock from growing in an orchard will also prevent al' damage to the fruit from 

 the sawfly. 



I hope 'hat this paper and the photos attached will enable each of you to do that 

 which we are constantly called upon to do, namely,to identify the insect by its work on 

 the fruit and prescribe remedies. 



