STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47 



effective while fresh ; but the sun shining upon it, would harden 

 the surface and the caterpillar would travel over it and the next 

 morning the trees would be loaded with them. Take a stiff paper 

 and wrap it around the trunk of the tree and put the sulphur and 

 lard on the paper and no caterpillar will travel over it. 



Prof. Harvey. Last fall, I took 135 cocoons from a locality east 

 of Old Town and put them away. Out of the 135 cocoons there 

 appeared twenty of the perfect insects. Further examiantion showed 

 me that these cocoons were infested with four different kinds of 

 parasites. I examined eighty of those cocoons and found they con- 

 tained parasites. Nature takes care of this matter ; not more than 

 fifteen per cent of these caterpillars will mature. They are subject 

 to great mishaps, beside the moths that come forth. You can tell 

 the eggs of the forest caterpillar from the apple tree. You can tell 

 by the cluster of eggs. The egg of the forest caterpillar is square 

 at the ends and they lay around the twigs, while the ordinary cater- 

 pillar's eggs slope off at the ends. I might say that these eggs are 

 subject to parasites. There is a little fly that belongs to the same 

 group and is very small, and after the cluster of eggs is laid it 

 deposits an egg in that cluster in each or a part of them. I took 

 some of the ordinary orchard caterpillars and some of those clusters 

 of eggs and put them into a breeding cage. Out of the cluster, I 

 should think of over a hundred eggs, only about twenty or thirty 

 of the caterpillars came out and there issued from the cluster, fifty 

 or sixty of those minute parasites. I was careful to examine those 

 cocoons often and I think there is a fungous disease that works upon 

 these caterpillars. 



Mr. Bennoch. My mode of pruning is in June ; I think it is the 

 best time to prune, because the sap is then changed into the saliva 

 condition and cutting at that time, it heals over more readily. Cut- 

 ting later in the fall, the wood heals badly. I don't think you can 

 change a Greening into a Northern Spy nor vice versa.- If it is the 

 nature of a tree to spread or grow up, it will do so ; I have had a 

 great many of them. 



Mr. Briggs. With regard to pruning, I have experimented some- 

 what and believe if the trees are well fertilized and kept in healthy 

 condition, that you can prune at any time of year. Perhaps if the 

 tree is in an unhealthy condition there may be something in the 

 time of cutting, but I don't think in a sound tree it makes any dif- 

 ference. I never saw anv bad effects from pruning any time of year. 



