EXTERMINATING NOXIOUS INSECTS. 249 



invader, and to let not even one larva escape. In some sec- 

 tions of country this has been done, and the result has been 

 excellent crops of fine fruit. When sheep and swine are 

 not permitted to devour all the premature specimens that 

 fall from the trees, such fruit should be picked up every 

 day and destroyed, so as to prevent the increase of the cur- 

 culio. By united efforts, this invader could be effectually 

 exterminated from the country in a few years. They who 

 would succeed in this work of extermination, must perse- 

 vere long, as new crops of the insects often continue to 

 come after the earlier ones are all destroyed. The best time 

 is early in the morning, when these insects are more torpid 

 than at midday. Once a day will commonly answer, except 

 in seasons of extraordinary abundance, when a second ex- 

 amination should be made at sundown. The work should 

 not be intermitted a single day. It is such intermissions 

 that often cause failure. Many have failed also by trying 

 to shake the pest off the trees. Nothing but a sharp jar 

 will bring them down. 



The Tent-caterpillar. This pest of the apple-orchard is 

 often alluded to as the most formidable enemy that po- 

 mologists have to encounter. But this caterpillar may be 

 exterminated with less trouble and labor than almost any 

 other insect of the orchard. The only remedy is to " catch 

 'em and kill 'em." Unlike some other depredators, this one 

 can be combated by destroying the moths, the eggs, or the 

 larvae, or full-grown worms. When numerous, it has been 

 known to strip whole orchards of their leaves, thus destroy- 

 ing the fruit-crop for the season, and sometimes proving 

 fatal to the trees. In many sections of the country where 

 these caterpillars are not molested, we have often seen large 

 orchards in the summer which looked as if a fire had been 

 sweeping through the tree-tops. 



The Tent-caterpillar is hatched from eggs deposited by a 

 11* 



