1040 DISEASES AND INSECTS 



DISEASES AND INSECTS 



the newly hatched canker-worms, and by tent-cater- 

 pillars, whose tents or "sign-boards" are familiar objects 

 in many orchards. These pests continue their destruc- 

 tive work on the leaves. The pear slug often needs to 

 be checked in its work of skeletonizing the leaves of 



the pear and cherry. 

 The pear psylla, one 

 of the jumping plant- 

 lice, is a very serious 

 menace to pear-grow- 

 ing in many locali- 

 ties; the fruit is either 

 dwarfed or drops 

 from badly infested 

 trees, and sometimes 

 so many little pumps 

 sucking out its life 

 finally cause the 

 death of the tree. 

 The little blue grape- 

 vine flea-beetle often 

 'literally nips the 

 prospective crop of 

 fruit in the bud, or 

 the rose-chafer may 

 swarm over the vines 

 and eat the foliage 

 or blossoms. Currant 

 and gooseberry grow- 

 ers realize that eter- 

 nal vigilance against 

 the familiar green 

 currant worms is the 

 price of a crop of 

 fruit. The asparagus 

 beetles would soon 



1317. A beetle borer and its work. appropriate every 

 The larva bores in the young wood asparagus shoot that 

 of raspberry and blackberry canes, appears in many 

 causing the swellings 8 een in the local j ties< I t is 1 



continual struggle 



against insect pests to get a paying crop of almost any 

 vegetable. The several kinds of cabbage caterpillars 

 would soon riddle the leaves. The hungry striped 

 cucumber beetles can hardly wait for the melon, squash, 

 or cucumber vines to come up. Two sucking insects, the 

 harlequin cabbage bug and the squash stink-bug, are 

 equally as destructive as their biting relatives. The 

 bud- and leaf-feeding insects are usually readily con- 

 trolled by spraying some poison on their food, or by 

 hitting them with some oil or soap spray. As the 

 female moths of canker-worms are wingless, a wire 

 trap or sticky bandage placed around the trunk of the 

 tree in the late fall and early spring, to capture the 

 moths as they crawl up the tree to lay their eggs, will 

 greatly help to check these serious pests. The collec- 

 tion and burning of the conspicuous egg-rings of the 



tent-caterpillars at any 

 time between August 

 and the following 

 April will greatly re- 

 duce the vast numbers 

 of tents or signboards 

 of shiftlessness in apple 

 orchards. Hand-pick- 

 ing or collecting is 

 the most successful 

 method of controlling 

 the rose-chafer, harle- 

 quin cabbage bug, and 

 the squash stink-bug in many cases. Prompt action, 

 guided by a knowledge of the insect's habits and life- 

 history, and any intelligent use of materials and 

 apparatus, are essential in any successful effort to 

 control these bud- and leaf-feeding pests of the horti- 

 culturist. 



1319. A crane fly. (Mounted) 



1318. Grasshopper. (Mounted) 



Fruit-eating insects. "Wormy" apples, pears, quinces, 

 plums, peaches, cherries, apricots, grapes, currants 

 and nuts are often the rule rather than the exception. 

 The codlin-moth or apple -worm often ruins from 

 one-third to one-half of the crop each year in many 

 localities; it also infests pears seriously. The apple 

 maggot tunnels its way through and through the flesh 

 of a large percentage of the apples in the northern sec- 

 tions of the country. Most of the wormy plums, 

 peaches, cherries and apricots are the work of the grub 

 of that worst insect enemy of the stone fruits the 

 plum curculio; the plum gouger, a similar insect, whose 

 grub works in the pit of plums, is equally destructive 

 to this fruit in some states. "Knotty" quinces are 

 largely the work of the adults of the quince curculio, 

 while its grub 

 often ruins the 

 fruit with its dis- 

 gusting w o r m- 

 hole. There is 

 also a grape cur- 

 culio that, with 

 the aid of the 

 caterpillar of a 

 little moth, 

 works havoc in 

 grapes. Cur- 

 rants and goose- 

 berries are often 

 wormy from the 

 work of two or 

 three different 

 kinds of maggots 

 and caterpillars. 

 Two kinds of 

 fruit flies attack the cherry; infested cherries may show 

 no external signs of the presence of the maggot reveling 

 in the juices within. Various small beetles known as 

 weevils, are responsible for most wormy nuts. Most of 

 the fruit-eating insects are out of the reach of the ordi- 

 nary insecticides. The codlin-moth is a noted exception, 

 however, for the peculiar habit that the little cater- 

 pillar has of usually entering the blossom end of the 

 fruit and feeding therein for a few days, gives the man 

 with a poison spray a very vulnerable point of attack. 

 It is only necessary to spray a bit of poison into the 

 open calyx cup within a few days after the petals fall, 

 and let nature soon close the calices and keep the 

 poison therein until the newly-hatched caterpillar 

 includes it in its first menu. Often 95 per cent of the 

 apples that would otherwise be ruined by the worms 

 are saved by an application of paris green at this 

 critical time. 



Plant-lice. Scarcely a plant escapes the little suc- 

 tion pump or beak of some kind of a plant-louse or 

 aphis. More than 300 different kinds of plant-lice 

 have been identified in the United States, and nearly 

 every kind of fruit, flower, farm or garden crop has 

 its special plant-louse enemy, which is often a serious 

 factor in the production of a crop. These little crea- 

 tures are so small, so variable, so hard 

 to perceive, present so many different 

 forms in the same species, and have 

 such varied and interesting life-stories 

 to tell, that what is known about them 

 is but a mere beginning as compared 

 to what is yet to be learned. It would 

 take a large volume to include the in- 

 teresting stories which might be told 

 of the lives and of the relations with 

 ants of some of the commonest of these 

 plant-lice. No other group of insects 

 presents so many curious, varied, inter- 

 esting, and wonderful problems of life 132 o. A snapping 

 as do the aphids. In the aggregate, the beetle, 



damage done by plant-lice is very great. (Mounted) 



