MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 161 



orchard once a year with a scraper, and take off any rough bark 

 I can see, (though not much has yet formed,) to remove all har- 

 bors for those eggs Avhich produce the borer, the worst enemy 

 to our apple orchards. I look my trees over usually twice a 

 year for borers ; in the spring and autumn ; but I find only a 

 very few, since I have scraped my trees thoroughly, either in 

 this young orchard or in my old one. I find that the borers 

 do not usually, the first year, penetrate any more than through 

 the bark, and can be extricated with a pen knife ; whereas 

 during the second and third year of their depredations, they are 

 often found far from the place of entrance and in the hard wood 

 of the tree. These facts I have gathered from my old orchard, 

 not having had much trouble in my new, from these intruders. 

 A number of years since, I declared a war of extermination upon 

 the common caterpillar, and do not mean to allow one family 

 of them to arrive at wormhood on my farm ; and am confident 

 that I have succeeded, at least, so far as this young orchard is 

 concerned. My method of destroying them is to go among my 

 trees soon after they hatch, either very early in the morning, 

 or about noon, in a sunny day, or when the branches are wet 

 with rain, and take from the branches, with my hands, all the 

 nests with all the occupants, and stamp them into the earth ; I 

 usually get nearly all the first time going over ; the remainder 

 the second time. The fall caterpillars that so deface the beauty 

 of our trees, I find rather more difficult to destroy than the 

 others, as they do not gather into so close quarters, but I have 

 a deadly hostility to them likewise, and calculate to destroy 

 them by cutting ofi" the leaves which contain them, and then 

 killing them as I do the others. 



I trim a little every year, preferring to do this work alone 

 myself, taking out small limbs not wanted to make a handsome 

 top ; and thus avoid the necessity of cutting off large limbs 

 which sometimes proves disastrous.* Last year many of my 

 trees in this orchard bore very nice fruit ; some of them so 

 abundantly as to need propping. This year, this orchard ap- 

 pears like most others in this vicinity, rather destitute of fruit. 



*I usually wash my trees in the month of June with potash water. 



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