F FRUIT TREES. 1C9 



sure WORM, OR NAKED SNAIL. 



Jt is frem the accurate observation of professor 

 Peck, that we are enabled to present the reader with 

 the history of the slug worm, by which, of late years, 

 our fruit trees have been infested. These reptiles 

 make their appearance upon the leaves of fruit trees, 

 in the month of Julj r , and our ingenious professor has 

 discovered, that they are the progeny of a small black 

 fly, which deposits its eggs in the leaf in the months 

 of May and June, and in fourteen days after the de- 

 posit, the perfect slug is found adhering and feeding 

 on the leaves. It is of an olive colour, with a slimy 

 coat, and in the course of twenty days, it throws off 

 four skins, at nearly equal periods ; it remains in the 

 fifth, or last viscous skin, six days, and acquires its 

 full growth; it then quits this fifth skin, which is 

 left adhering to the leaf, and appears in a clean yellow 

 one, entirely free from vicidity, and has so different 

 an aspect that it would not be supposed to be the 

 same larva?. After resting some hours, it proceeds 

 slowly down the tree to the earth, into which it en- 

 ters to the depth of from one to four inches ; and in 

 about eighteen days they again ascend from the 

 earth, in the form of flies, and these again deposit 

 their eggs in the leaf; so that they produce two 

 hatchings in a year. . 



It is happy for the fruit planter that a simple 

 method is discovered, by which these destructive in- 

 sects may be effectually destroyed. This is done 

 by means of lime sprinkled over the leaves in the 

 form of powder. For tnis purpose, a wooden box, of 

 convenient size, having its bottom perforated with 

 numerous small holes, is to be filled with lime. This 

 being mounted on a pole, by shaking over (he tree, 

 distributes the lime among the leaves, and the slugs 

 are immediately destroyed. The labour is very triv- 



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