OF FRUIT 



From the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository, volume ir. 

 On a worm which attacks the apple tree. By John Prince, 

 Esq. 



Jamaica Plains, July, 1819. 



DEAR SIR, I have, within a few years past, lost 

 a number of apple trees of from ten to fifteen years 

 old, and was not able to account for it. My young 

 trees also, that were beginning to bear, produced 

 chiefly wormy and knurly fruit. The last year I 

 found what I supposed to be the cause, which was 

 a small, white, ringed worm, about three quarters 

 of an inch long, with a dark coloured head, (I be- 

 lieve the same that attacks the peach tree,) attack- 

 ing them at and just below the surface of the 

 ground. I mentioned the subject to professor 

 Peck, yourself, and several other gentlemen, who 

 had never heard of this destroyer of the apple tree. 

 I feared much the loss of all my trees, of which I 

 have near one thousand, and mostly of my own 

 planting. This spring, a man, who was grafting for 

 me some old trees, told me he had trees that had 

 been affected in the same way, and that they were 

 very easily got rid of, by digging round the trees, and 

 clearing away the earth to the roots, and then, with 

 a sharp pointed knife, a chisel, or gouge, (and a 

 small wire to probe, if they were deep in the tree,) 

 they were easily destroyed. I employed him in 

 June for this purpose. I believe there was not 

 an apple tree on my farm but had some worms ; 

 and from some of them twenty-four were taken ; 

 and the trees almost entirely girdled, and would 

 not, probably, have lived through the year. After 

 taking out all that could be found, the wounds were 

 covered over with grafting clay, and a large pro- 

 portion of dry wood ashes, mixed, arid the earth 

 then returned to the tree. I shall have them again 

 examined this fall, and looked at every spring. 

 The trouble is much less than would be imagined, 

 till tried. One capable man will dig round and 



