EXTERMINATING NOXIOUS INSECTS. 257 



have killed their trees? And hundreds of young apple- 

 trees all over the country may be found, at the present 

 day, that have been infested with borers for one or more 

 years, which have injured the growing trees so seriously 

 that they will never recover. In our visits through the 

 country, we frequently see orchards that are half ruined by 

 borers ; and the proprietors had not even thought that there 

 was a borer to be found. We have frequently been asked 

 if we could not suggest some good reason for the singular 

 appearance of certain trees; whereupon, to give ocular 

 demonstration that borers were at work, we have applied the 

 point of a jack-knife, dislodging, in some instances, eight 

 or nine borers from one tree. Any intelligent observer 

 may, by close attention, soon learn how to discover, almost 

 at first glance, the place where a newly-hatched borer lies 

 concealed. Usually, the Apple-tree Borer is found at the 

 collar of the tree, close to the ground ; and they are some- 

 times detected on the body and large branches of a tree. 

 A small drop of brown fluid, resembling tobacco- juice in 

 color, usually reveals its presence ; for at that early stage 

 of its development the well-known sawdust -like excre- 

 tions characteristic of the full grown larvae must not be 

 looked for. 



The Apple-tree Borer is the larva or grub of a beautiful 

 bug or beetle, which deposits its eggs at or near the sur- 

 face of the ground, on the trunk of the tree, during the 

 months of May and June; and sometimes, entomologists 

 assure us, the eggs are oviposited in July and August by 

 the parent bugs (Fig. 100, p. 261), and in a week or two 

 little plump borers are hatched, which immediately begin 

 to bore through the tender bark. 



The next spring, as soon as hard freezing is over, he goes 

 to work vigorously, still feeding on the liber, or inner bark. 

 By fall he will have attained a length of one-half to three- 



