22 MASSACHUSETTS HOKTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Hovey said the oldest plan was the best, and that Mr. Clapp 

 used the boxes with troughs forty years ago. Trees must be 

 tarred Sundays, for the worms would run that day as well as others. 

 A protector costing two dollars and a half per tree would be too 

 expensive with apples at fifty cents a barrel. 



Benjamin G. Smith said that he had captured eight hundred 

 grubs in an evening, and that he had ascertained by actual count 

 with a microscope that each patch of eggs laid by a single insect 

 contained from one hundred to one hundred and fifty eggs. 



President Strong spoke of the method adopted by Thomas Saw^^er 

 of Boxford, as described in the "Transactions of the Essex Agri- 

 cultural Society" for 1872, of laying the gutters on the ground, 

 which Mr. Sawyer had found quite as eflTectual as fastening them 

 on the sides of a box, and less than one third as expensive. 



Mr. Ware said that he had seen Mr. Sawyer's trees. The tar 

 has resin oil mixed with ,it, and is stirred up or replenished three 

 or four times in autumn, and the same in the spring. 



Marshall P. Wilder spoke of the time when the canker worm was 

 committing great devastation in Dorchester thirty years ago. They 

 were so numerous that they could be heard travelling through tlie 

 grass, but Avere mostly confined to a narrow strip running through 

 the town. A concerted movement was made by fruit-growers to 

 destroy them, and the method of enclosing the trees with boxes, 

 around the top of which was a wooden gutter, filled with tar and 

 whale oil, was then invented. They cost then about thirt^^-five 

 cents each. Oil was added from time to time to keep the tar 

 liquid. This plan has been used by Messrs. Clapp and others to 

 this day, and Mr. Wilder believed it to be not only entirely 

 effectual, but the cheapest of many contrivances which he had 

 tested, including zinc and cast-iron troughs, glass rings, etc. The 

 boxes put on at the time referred to lasted a long time, and ho 

 had this winter been burning up some which had remained around 

 his trees ever since. 



James Cruikshanks said that when so many plans had been pro- 

 posed he was glad to hear of a return to first principles. He 

 alluded to a plan for destroying the worms by the use of elec- 

 tricity. 



The sense of the meeting appeared to be that either the bands of 

 ink or troughs of oil were effectual, provided the ink was renewed 

 sulficiently often, and that the leaves, spider webs, etc., which 



