274 THE APPLE CULTUMIST. 



as it is at these parts that the seperda prefers to lay its 

 eggs ; and just below the surface it is that root lice assem- 

 ble before going upon the roots for the winter. In some 

 instances, where the soil is unusually light and porous, two 

 or three wagon-loads of clay spread around a tree, and 

 worked into the soil, will operate as a satisfactory prevent- 

 ive of lice. 



After root lice have deprived a root of its juices, they 

 shift to others which will afford the needed supply of food. 

 Thus one root after another yields up its nutriment to these 

 pests, until the tree is either killed, or so weakened that it 

 is attacked in all its parts by borers. In the summer num- 

 bers of them may always be found in the tops of the trees, 

 under the partial cover of new wood and bark growth, 

 where it is forming over fresh wounds made in pruning. 

 When considerable numbers of lice assemble at these 

 points, they cause numerous warty excrescences on the new- 

 made bark, similar to the parts punctured by them below 

 ground. On summer-grafted or newly-budded trees, they 

 are a great nuisance. They soon find the wounds made by 

 inserting the grafts or buds, which they enter, and, if not 

 prevented, they so deplete the parts that the stock will not 

 unite with the graft or bud. If a heavy mulch of straw or 

 hay is placed close around the trees early in the fall, vast 

 numbers of lice will come together on the tree at the sur- 

 face of the ground. On single trees so treated, we have, in 

 the month of October, seen as many as half a pint of these 

 insects. It has been suggested that advantage might be 

 taken of their coming together under the mulch by pour- 

 ing boiling water over them. But if they are allowed to 

 remain long at this point, they will kill the tree by severing 

 the connection between the sap-vessels in the top and roots. 

 On large roots the injuries done by root lice do not, at first, 

 become apparent ; generally not until after the lice have 



