74 INSECT PESTS 



cling. The case of the small boy in the apple tree, and 

 the expression on his face when he manages to escape, is 

 even more convincing." 



So the first house was in a tree, where were dining, 

 drawing and bedroom all in one, and although when hard 

 times came we had to hide in caves under the ground 

 and shiver in a heap together while glacial storms swept 

 away the golden age, we have never really forgotten our 

 pristine condition, or rather the record of it is indelibly 

 stamped into our minds, for our thoughts and feelings, 

 bad dreams and good ones, childish fears and grown- 

 up superstitions are all an index of something which has 

 gone on in the past. 



I suppose every one will agree that the apple is the 

 first of fruits, the one we could least spare, all things 

 considered. Other fruits may be fashionable or distinc- 

 tive, they may even be rare and refreshing, but still the 

 apple, to my mind, comes first. 



Let us endeavour to see what a healthy apple tree 

 ought to be free from and protected against. We need 

 not go into the various lands, as that lies within the 

 province of horticultuer, and generally speaking apples 

 are apples to insects, even though it be only a 

 crab. Standards, bush varieties and espafiers are 

 all liable to attack, though the modern practice 

 of planting dwarf trees would seem to give the 

 fruit-grower more chance of handling them effectively. 

 Of course the fruit crop in a climate like ours, with its 

 sudden reversions of frosty weather in late spring, must 

 always be precarious, but that we cannot help. 



A tree is like a small universe in itself, and even a modest 

 apple may harbour a population more numerous and 

 various than is fully realized. The inhabitants are, as we 

 know, largely insects and mites. They may be inside 

 the tree as wood-borers, in the bark or on it, as beetles 

 and scale-pests, spider or moth-eggs ; or they may be 

 leaf-rollers, leaf-miners, bud-borers, flower -eaters, fruit- 



