SPRAYING THE APPLE ORCHARD. 



35 



OTHER MEANS OF COMBATING THE CpDLING 



MOTH. 



As has been noted, the woodpeckers and nuthatches an- 

 nually save us barrels of apples by destroying the apple 

 worms under the bark in the winter. They should there- 

 fore be encouraged and lured to the orchard whenever pos- 

 sible. Bits of suet and 

 meat suspended from the 

 trees will often attract 

 them and sometimes help 

 them through a hard win- 

 ter. 



Thoroughly scraping 

 the bark with a sharp hoe 

 or tree-scraper, so as to 

 remove the hiding places 

 of the wintering larva\ 

 will also materially aid in 

 their control. 



Usually nearly half of 

 the windfall fruit is 

 wormy, and the fruit 

 drops before the worms 

 are full grown. If it be 

 left on the ground the 

 worms emerge and form 

 their cocoons on the near- 

 est tree. If the dropped fruit be gathered frequently, or 

 if enough hogs run in the orchard to keep it destroyed, a 

 large proportion of the larva? will be killed, and especially 

 those which mature early and form the small second brood. 



To illustrate the value of scraping the trees and keeping 

 the drops picked up, a comparison of two orchards about 

 a mile apart may be of interest. One had been fairly well 

 cared for in this way, while the other had been neglected. 

 The conditions in the latter orchard may be appreciated 

 from the photographs. In the other the trees had been 



Fig. 22.—" The neglected orchard. 



