SPAN-WORMS. 



SPAN-WORMS. 



that it does to the trees when allowed to run | 

 and remain on the bark, have caused many 

 persons to neglect this method, and some to 

 try various modifications of it, and other expe- 

 dients. Among the modifications may be men- 

 tioned a horizontal and close-fitting collar of 

 boards, fastened around the trunk, and smeared 

 beneath with tar; or four boards, nailed to- 

 gether, like a box without top or bottom, around 

 the base of the tree, to receive the tar on the 

 outside. These can be used to protect a few 

 choice trees in a garden, or around a house or 

 a public square, but will be found too expen- 

 sive to be applied to any great extent. Collars 

 of tin-plate, fastened around the trees, and 

 sloping downwards like an inverted tunnel, 

 have been proposed, upon the supposition that 

 the moths would not be able to creep in an in- 

 verted position, beneath the smooth and sloping 

 surface. This method will also prove too ex- 

 pensive for general adoption, even should it 

 be found to answer the purpose. A belt of 

 cotton-wool, which it has been thought would 

 entangle the feet of the insects, and thus keep 

 them from ascending the trees, has not proved 

 an effectual bar to them. Little square or cir- 

 cular troughs of tin or of lead, filled with cheap 

 fish-oil, and placed around the trees, 3 feet or 

 more above the surface of the ground, with a 

 stuffing of cloth, hay, or sea-weed between 

 them and the trunk, have long been used by 

 various persons in Massachusetts with good 

 success ; and the only objections to them are 

 the cost of the troughs, the difficulty of fixing 

 and keeping them in their places, and the in- 

 jury suffered by the trees when the oil is 

 washed or blown out and falls upon the bark. 

 Mr. Jonathan Dennis, Jr., of Portsmouth, Rhode 

 Island, has obtained a patent for a circular 

 leaden trough to contain oil, offering some 

 advantages over those that have heretofore 

 been used, although it does not entirely prevent 

 the escape of the oil, and the nails, with which 

 it is secured, are found to be injurious to the 

 trees. These troughs ought not to be nailed to 

 the trees, but should be supported by a few 

 wooden wedges driven between them and the 

 trunks. A stuffing of cloth, cotton, or tow, 

 should never be used; sea-weed and fine hay, 

 which will not absorb the oil, are much better. 

 Before the* troughs are fastened and filled, the 

 body of the tree should be well coated with 

 clay-paint or white-wash, to absorb the oil that 

 may fall upon it. Care should be taken to 

 renew the oil as often as it escapes or becomes 

 filled with the insects. These troughs will be 

 found more economical and less troublesome 

 than the application of tar, and may safely be 

 recommended and employed, if proper atten- 

 tion is given to the precautions above named. 

 Some persons fasten similar troughs, to con- 

 tain oil, around the outer sides of an open box 

 enclosing the base of the tree, and a projecting 

 ledge is nailed on the edge of the box to shed 

 the rain ; by this contrivance, all danger of 

 hurting the tree with the oil is entirely avoid- 

 ed. In the Manchester Guardian, an English 

 newspaper, of the 4th of November, 1840, is 

 the following article on the use of melted Indian 

 rubber to prevent insects from climbing up 

 trees. "At a late meeting of the Entomolo- 



gical Society [of London], Mr. J. H. Fennell 

 communicated the following successful mode 

 of preventing insects ascending the trunks of 

 fruit trees. Let a piece of Indian rubber be 

 burnt over a gallipot, into which it will gradu- 

 ally drop in the condition of a viscid juice, 

 which state, it appears, it will al \vays retain ; for 

 Mr. Fennell has, at the present time, some 

 which has been melted for upwards of a year, 

 and has been exposed to all weathers without 

 undergoing the slightest change. Having 

 melted the Indian rubber, let a piece of cord or 

 worsted be smeared with it, and then tied seve- 

 ral times round the trunk. The melted sub- 

 stance is so very sticky, that the insects will 

 be prevented, and generally captured, in their 

 attempts to pass over it. About 3 pennyworths 

 of Indian rubber is sufficient for the protection 

 of 20 ordinary sized fruit trees." Applied in 

 this way it would not be sufficient to keep the 

 canker-worm moths from getting up the trees ; 

 for the first comers would soon bridge over the 

 cord with their bodies, and thus afford a pas- 

 sage to their followers. To insure success, it 

 should be melted in larger quantities, and 

 daubed with a brush upon strips of cloth or 

 paper, fastened round the trunks of the trees. 

 Worn-out Indian rubber shoes, which are 

 worth little or nothing for any other purpose, 

 can be put to this use. This plan has been 

 tried by a few persons in the vicinity of Bos- 

 ton, some of whom speak favourably of it. It 

 has been suggested that the melted rubber 

 might be applied immediately to the bark with- 

 out injuring the trees. A little conical mound 

 of sand surrounding the base of the tree is 

 found to be impassable to the moths, so long 

 as the sand remains dry ; but they easily pass 

 over it when the sand is wet, and they come 

 out of the ground m wet as often as in dry 

 weather. 



Some attempts have been made to destroy 

 the canker-worms after they were hatched from 

 the eggs, and were dispersed over the leaves 

 of the trees. It is said that some persons have 

 saved their trees from these insects by freely 

 dusting air-slacked lime over them while the 

 leaves were wet with dew. Showering the 

 trees with mixtures that are found useful to 

 destroy other insects, has been tried by a few, 

 and, although attended with a good deal of 

 trouble and expense, it may be worth our while 

 to apply such remedies upon small and choice 

 trees. Mr. David Haggerston, of Watertown, 

 Massachusetts, has used, for this purpose, a 

 mixture of water and oil-soap (an article to be 

 procured from the manufactories where whale- 

 oil is purified), in the proportion of 1 pound of 

 the soap to 7 gallons of water; and he states 

 that this liquor, when thrown on the trees with 

 a garden engine, will destroy the canker-worm 

 and many other insects, without injuring the 

 foliage or the fruit. Jarring or shaking the 

 limbs of the trees will disturb the canker- 

 worms, and cause many of them to spin down, 

 when their threads may be broken off with a 

 pole ; and if the troughs around the trees are 

 at the same time replenished with oil, or the 

 tar is again applied, the insects will be caught 

 in their attempts to creep up the trunks. In. 

 the same way, also, those that are coming down 



1005 



