136 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



quite small wheu winter overtakes them, duriog which season they 

 remain dormant. With the retui-n of warm weather they renew 

 their boring operations, and increase rapidly in size until about 

 the beginning of August, when they cease feeding and enter the 

 pupal stage. A week or two after this they emerge as beetles 

 from their burrows in the wood. Thus they complete the cycle of 

 their existence in just a year. 



The beetles are particularly fond of golden rod and some other 

 yellow flowers, and they should be killed whenever found. They 

 are easily captured, and should be collected from the bark of the 

 trees they infest. The aim should be to prevent egg-laying. 

 This may best be accomplished by giving the trunks and larger 

 branches a thorough and heavy washing of soap. There are many 

 ways by which fairly efficient washes may be made, and different 

 ingredients may be added ; but the following formula, proposed 

 by Dr. Charles V. Riley, may be taken as a good standard, for a 

 soap to be applied to the trunks of trees to prevent the inroads of 

 borers. 



Potash lye, one pound ; fish oil, three pints ; soft water, two 

 gallons. Dissolve the lye in the water, and when brought to 

 the boiling point, add the oil, and boil the whole about two 

 hours. Water is added to make up the evaporation by boiling, 

 and the result will be, twenty-five pounds of soft soap, which will 

 make from fifty to one hundred gallons of trunk wash, according 

 to the amount of dilution. The application of the wash should be 

 most thorough, so that it shall enter well into the crevices of the 

 bark. In this region it should be applied about the 20th of 

 August, and again in two or three weeks, if much washed by 

 rains. It is particularly important that the trees should be looked 

 after when young. 



The young branches of the locusts are subject to serious injury 

 from another borer, the larva of a small moth (Ecdytolopha 

 ivsiticiana). This insect causes a swelling of the part of the twig 

 affected, and an examination in summer will show that it is hollow 

 and inhabited by a small white larva, which becomes fully 

 grown and leaves the twig at the end of summer, and usually 

 forms its chrysalis on the ground. The best remedy which can be 

 suggested is to cut off these brandies below the parts affected, 

 and destroy them with their contained larvae. This work must be 

 done in sunmier when the swollen parts are green and fresh and 



