NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



139 



of Geneva, had met with it along the Hud- 

 son, where the Marlboro was so badly af- 

 fected with it and with cane blight that this 

 variety was being discarded. The yellows 

 attacked both growing and fruiting canes, 

 and rendered the fruit insipid. But so far 

 both cause and remedy is unknow-n. , 



KASPBEKKY CANE BLIGHT. 



"This," said Prof. Stewart, "appears just 

 as the fruit is ripening, and is a very de- 

 structive fungus, in some, cases reducing the 

 fruit crop 25 per cent. It first discolors the 

 bark and finally kills the canes. Spraying 

 with Bordeaux had not proved of any use, 

 and so far the only advice he could give was 

 to secure healthy plants and to cut out the 

 old canes as soon as the fruit is gathered.'' 



THE APPLE TREE TENT CATERPILLAR. 



MR. D. C. CROSBY, of Berwick, N. S., 

 writes : "I enclose you a nest ot 

 caterpillar eggs, which, if illustrated and 

 explained, might help us to fight the pest. This 

 nest came off a plum tree, but I find them on 

 apple trees also." 



The nest contains the eggs of the Apple 

 Tree Tent Caterpillar, and when the letter 

 reached us the warmth of the room had de- 

 ceived the tiny little worms into the belief 

 that spring had come, and they began to 

 come out of their egg state and crawl about 

 the letter. These eggs were deposited in 

 July upon the smaller twigs of the fruit 

 trees, in ring-like clusters of, in all, perhaps, 

 two or three hundred. We give the follow- 

 ing description of them, with cuts, from Dr. 

 Saunder's excellent work, entitled " Insects 

 injurious to Fruits," a work that should be 

 in the hand of -every fruit grower: The 



Fig. 2566 



eggs are conical, and about one-twentieth of 

 an inch long, firmly cemented together, and 



^367- 



coated with a tough varnish, impervious t ) 

 rain, the cluster presenting the appearance 

 shown in Fig. 2566. In Fig. 2567, at c, a 

 similar cluster is shown with the gummy 

 covering removed, showing the manner in 

 which the eggs are arranged. The young 

 caterpillars are fully matured in the tgg be- 

 fore winter comes, and they remain in this 

 enclosure in a torpid state throughout the 

 cold weather, hatching during the first warm 

 days of spring. They usually appear dur- 

 ing the last week in April or early in May, 

 much depending on the prevailing tempera- 

 ture. Their first meal is made of portions 

 of the gummy material with which the egg 

 masses are covered, and with the strength 

 thus gained they proceed at once to work. 

 At this time the buds are bursting, thus pro- 

 viding these young larvae with an abund- 

 ance of tender food. * * * These lar- 

 vae are tent makers, and soon after birth 

 they beg^n to construct for themselves a shel- 

 ter by extending a sheet of web across the 

 nearest fork of the twig upon which they 



