ATTACKING THE LEAVES. 69 



the application will be useless; they should also be applied 

 as early as the latter part of October, and kept on until the 

 leaves are expanded in the following spring. It must also be 

 remembered that some of the moths, defeated in their attempts 

 to climb the trees, will deposit their eggs near the ground, or 

 anywhere, in fact, below the barrier, and that the tiny young 

 worms hatched from them will pass without difficulty through 

 a very small opening. Hence, whether troughs or bandages 

 are used, care must be taken to fill up all the irregularities of 

 surface in the bark of the trees, so that no openings shall be 

 left through which they may pass. Cotton batting answers 

 well in most cases for this purpose. 



The second class of remedies consists of various ingenious 

 devices, in the way of collars of metal, wood, or glass fastened 

 around the tree and sloping downward like an inverted funnel. 

 These, although they prevent the moths from ascending the 

 tree, offer but little obstacle to the progress of the young 

 caterpillars unless the openings between the collar and the 

 tree are carefully packed, and hence they often fail of entire 

 success. Those belonging to the first class are said to be the 

 surest and best, and while it must be admitted that it involves 

 much time and labor to renew so often and for so long a period 

 the tar or other sticky application so as to make it an effectual 

 barrier to the ascent of the insect, still it will pay, wherever 

 the canker-worm abounds, to give this matter the attention 

 requisite to insure success. The limited power of motion 

 possessed by the female usually confines this insect within 

 narrow limits, and hence it is local in its attacks, sometimes 

 abounding in one orchard and being scarcely known in a 

 neighboring one; but when it has obtained a footing, and is 

 neglected, it usually multiplies prodigiously. Strong winds 

 will sometimes carry the larvae from one tree to another near 

 by. When the caterpillars are once on the tree, if the tree is 

 small, they may be dislodged by jarring, when they all drop, 

 suspended in mid-air by silken threads; then, by swinging a 

 stick above them, the threads may be collected and the larvae 



