266 



Effective Farming 



(Fig. 113) is a familiar sight. The female lays eggs in clusters 

 about five or six weeks after the trees have blossomed. The 

 eggs are placed in brownish bunches around a twig and they 

 hatch the next spring about the time the trees are leaving out. 

 The larvae start to eat at once and work in groups, spinning 

 the silken web in which they stay during the night. In the 

 day time, especially if the sun is shining, they crawl out and 

 eat the foliage. Often a colony will strip the foliage from a 



large area. The insect 

 is combated by spray- 

 ing the trees with a 

 poison before they 

 blossom. The worms 

 eating the poisoned 

 leaves will be killed. 

 It is also a good plan 

 to burn the webs by 

 means of a torch. To 

 be effective, this should 

 be done on a cloudy 

 day, as the worms are 

 then likely to be in the 

 webs. 



Plant-lice. Sev- 

 eral kinds of plant- 

 lice attack fruit- 

 trees. Among the 



FIG. 113. Nest and larvae of apple-tree tent- 

 caterpillar in crotch of wild cherry tree. 



most troublesome are the woolly apple aphis, the green apple 

 aphis, the black cherry aphis, the black peach aphis, and the 

 russet plum aphis. Methods of combating these lice are by 

 spraying with a solution of whale-oil soap, made up in the 

 proportion of a pound of soap to six gallons of water, a tobacco 

 solution made up according to directions on the package, and 

 kerosene emulsion stock solution diluted one to seventeen. 

 The insects usually feed on the under side of the leaf and 



