INJURIOUS INSECTS. 63 



the orchardist. These are chiefly the borer, the caterpillar, and 

 the canker worm. 



The apple Borer is, as we usually see it in the trunks of the 

 apple, quince, and thorn trees, a fleshy white grub, which enters 

 the tree at the collar, just at the surface of the ground, where 

 the bark is tender, and either girdles the tree or perforates it 

 through every part of the stem, finally causing its death. This 

 grub is the larva, of a brown and white striped beetle, half an inch 

 long, (Saperda bivittata.) and it remains in this grub state two 

 or three years, coming out of the tree in a butterfly form early in 

 June flying in the night only, from tree to tree after its food, 

 and finally depositing its eggs during this and the next month, 

 in the collar of the tree. 



The most effectual mode of destroying the borer, is that of 

 killing it by thrusting a flexible wire as far as possible into its 

 hole. Dr. Harris recommends placing a bit of camphor in the 

 mouth of the aperture and plugging the hole with soft wood. 

 But it is always better to prevent the attack of the borer, by 

 placing about the trunk, early in the spring, a small mound of 

 ashes or lime ; and where orchards have already become greatly 

 infested with this insect, the beetles may be destroyed by thou- 

 sands, in June, by building small bonfires of shavings in various 

 parts of the orchard. The attacks of the borer on nursery trees 

 may, in a great measure, be prevented by washing the stems in 

 May, quite down to the ground with a solution of two pounds of 

 potash in eight quarts of water. 



The Caterpillar is a great pestilence in the apple orchard. 

 The species which is most troublesome to our fruit trees ( Clisio- 

 campa americana,) is bred by a sort of lackey moth, different 

 from that most troublesome in Europe, but its habits as a 

 caterpillar are quite as annoying to the orchardist. The moth 

 of our common caterpillar is a reddish brown insect, whose ex- 

 panded wings measure about an inch and a half. These moths 

 appear in great abundance in midsummer, flying only at night, 

 and often buzzing about the candles in our houses. In laying 

 their eggs, they choose principally the apple or cherry, and they 

 deposit thousands of small eggs about the forks ancl extremities 

 of the young branches. The next season, about the middle of 

 May, these eggs begin to hatch, and the young caterpillars in 

 myriads, come forth weaving their nests or tents in the fork of 

 the branches. If they are allowed by the careless cultivator to 

 go on and multiply, as they soon do, incredibly fast, they will 

 in a few seasons, sometimes in a single year, increase to 

 such an extent as almost to cover the branches. In this cater- 

 pillar state they live six or seven weeks, feeding most vora- 

 ciously upon the leaves, and often stripping whole trees of their 

 foliage. Their effect upon the tree at this period of the season, 

 when the leaves are most important to the health of the tree and 



