APPLE GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 79 



CHAPTER XIV. 



INSECT PESTS OF THE APPLE. 



CODLING MOTH. 



AN failure to control the codling moth means failure to make a 

 financial success of the apple business, a full discussion of this most 

 serious of all apple pests seems necessary in a work of this nature. 



The annual loss in fruit from this pest is tremendous and could we 

 secure accurate figures they would be startling. Practically every apple 

 umwer has at some time or other paid it toll in apples destroyed, and 

 others have allowed their crops to go year after year without making 

 any effort to save them. Despite the fact that it is so common and so 

 destructive a pest, it is one that is largely under our control and any 

 oivhardist who is willing to use brains in fighting it is going to meet 

 with success. It is true, however, that the codling moth sometimes gets 

 so bad in a locality that one or two seasons of most careful and heavy 

 spraying are needed to reduce its numbers to a point where control will 

 be comparatively easy. Again, its control may in some cases be a com- 

 munity problem, where all must join in the fight if they would succeed 

 themselves or protect their neighbors. It is not known just how far the 

 moths will fly, but surely from an orchard on one side of a road to one 

 on the other. Thus one may have to fight harder because of the negli- 

 gence of a neighbor who fails to spray. 



How the Pest Spends the Winter. 



A knowledge of the wintering habits of an insect is sometimes a 

 valuable thing in connection with its control. In this case we have a 

 pest that winters in such a way that something, but not all, may be done 

 toward its control during the winter or dormant season. After the full 

 grown second brood larvae leave the apples in the fall or winter they 

 secrete themselves under the loose bark of trees in the orchard, in cracks 

 between boards in packing or storage houses, in fact almost anywhere 

 that they can find hiding places. As a majority of the wormy apples 

 usually fall to the ground before picking time, the worms in them that 

 may escape can readily reach trees where hiding places may be found. 

 \Yry frequently, however, they leave the apples while they are still 

 1] a Hiring to the trees, and crawl down the limbs and trunk until suitable 

 quarters are discovered. When such are found the larva? immediately 

 l><"_:in the construction of little cocoons of silk, which when completed 

 form a protection against the weather and enemies that might prey upon 

 Them. In this cocoon they remain as full grown apple worms or larvae 

 throughout the entire winter season, and never can they be found in 

 any other stage during this time. By scraping off the loose bark on 

 old trees, in particular, frequently large numbers of these hibernating 

 larva? may be destroyed. Such should always be done when an attempt 

 is being made to control the pest in an orchard or collection of orchards, 

 where spraying has been neglected until the codling moth has become so 

 abundant as to make spraying work more or less ineffective. 



