1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMEE. 



531 



long, which they manage with surprising dexterity, 

 soon drove tlie herd to tlicir ' cow-])cns,' for the 

 purpose of m.irking and l)randing. This is done 

 every year in ' fly time.' Tlic cattle ranging, scat- 

 tered thirty miles around, are now easily found col- 

 lected at their stamping grounds, and are driven to 

 a common pen or pound, where the res])ectivc own- 

 ers assemble and put their marks and brands on the 

 increase of the season. Thus the Egy])tian plague is 

 turned to a useful purpose." 



Fur the New England Farmer. 



THE CANKER WORM AGAIN. 



Can we Protect olr Ouciiaups fko.m iu.s Ravages f — Several 

 Plans that have i!Een Tested, and the Results. 



This is an old question, Mr. Editor, a very old 

 one, as your man of the type very well knows ; and 

 it is a question which has proved as perplexing a 

 puzzle to our brother farmers, as ever could have 

 been ])ropounded by the famous Sphynx of old. 

 That little pest, the canlcer moth, though he has 

 been exorcised in every way that Yankee ingenuity 

 put to the rack, could suggest, and though repeat- 

 edly condemned to death by divers goodly inven- 

 tions, still climbs the trees as large as life and as 

 natural as ever, and still carefully deposits his eggs, 

 big with destruction to the most interesting depart- 

 ment of all our farming. The little insect which 

 produces the canker worm is the indirect cause of 

 serious pecuniary loss to the farmer, and he is, 

 therefore, conijielled to protect himself from his 

 ravages; but who is there of us so wise, or so good, 

 that we cannot learn from it " some lesson of wis- 

 dom ?" 1 did not take up my pen to moralize, but 

 consider what an example of self-devotion this lit- 

 tle creature is. The closing act of its life is to prop- 

 agate its species ; when its instinct warns it that 

 the period aj)]n'oaches for this, the great business of 

 its life, how directly it sets out on its mission, how 

 diligently it seeks a safe home for its future off- 

 spring, and with what untiring devotion it travels 

 straight on to destruction, rather than locate its 

 precious l)urden, it may be i)ut an inch lower down 

 the trunk of the tree, than might be for their best 

 good. Its love for its offs])ring appears to be great- 

 er even, than its instinct of self-preservation. When 

 civilization felled the wild fruit trees of the forest, it 

 deprived him of his natural home, and driven by men 

 from his native retreat, he has entered our gardens, 

 and this, with no more evil design, than one who is 

 not a moral and intelligent being, bears in his tiny 

 body. May we all be as faithful in our several du- 

 ties, with the light and guidance of our moral and 

 intellectual nature, as this little creature is in com- 

 pleting his ])art of the great design, though without 

 the aid of either. 



In common with my neighbors, my garden has 

 suffered much for several years j)ast iVom the rav- 

 ages of the canker worm. 1 i)er])lexed myself 

 with the various inventions the ingeiuiity of man 

 has given Ijirtli to, as means of pre\ enting the moth 

 from ascending tlie trees ; for here is where the 

 ■work of defence begins anil ends. First, I did fair 

 battle with tlie enemy, and slaughtered at "hand to 

 hand" conflict; but the exjjerience of a few days 

 demonstrated that, in projecting this campaign, I 

 had, like the allies before Sebastoj)ol, altogether 

 " underrated the resources of the enemy." Next, 

 I collected all the old boot-legs about the premises, 

 carried them to the garden, and with awl and tlu-ead 



made a wide, close-fitting leather belt for each tree, 

 and over this laid a thick mixture of tar and india 

 rubl)er, ])ut after a short time, the coating became 

 hardened in ])laces, and ^Ir. Moth marched triumph- 

 antly up. The next winter I set to work in earn- 

 est, determined to barricade the persistent enemy, 

 if the thing could jjossihly be done. Commencing 

 in October, every fair day when the temperature 

 was such that the moth could possibly be stirring, 

 each tree received a fresh coating of tar. This plan, 

 as might be conjectured, did the work jjretty ef- 

 fectually, and Lld 1 commenced the w^ork a little 

 earlier, ])roi)ably not a canker worm would have 

 shown liimself on the trees for that season. But, 

 wovdd such a course pay ? Ver}' obviously it would 

 not, when api)lied to orchards of any size, unless a 

 man could bring to his task the patience of a Job, 

 after having tiiught e\cY\ other dci)artment of the 

 farm to take care of itself. Besides, tliis plan 

 brought an after and unlooked for harvest ; for be- 

 tween the running of the tar down tlie trunks of 

 the trees, and the hidden work of the borer behind 

 the leathern band, we barely escaped the loss of 

 some of our most valuable trees. Then I tried the 

 cotton-batting discovery. The result of this is very 

 generally knowm ; it did check the ascent of the 

 moth, but was by no means a protection. iVgain, I 

 attempted to balk the instincts of the little intru- 

 der by enclosing the trunk of each tree at the sur- 

 face of the earth, with a box having the form and 

 ])Osition of an inverted truncated pyramid, and bor- 

 dering the upper edge with a hedge of dry tree 

 trimmings, none of which touched the tree. We 

 had hoped that the insect, not finding ready access 

 to the tree, would ascend the sides of the box, and 

 then, instead of descending within to get access to 

 the tree, would continue ascending, and deposit its 

 eggs among the dead trimmings. But I was de- 

 ceived ; their instincts proved too nice and too true 

 for the success of my plan, and e\entuall}- they 

 generally got access to the trees, and deposited 

 their seeds of mischief. Next year I sent for a 

 workman in a neighboring town, and employed 

 him, at a heavy expense, to protect each tree with 

 a leaden collar. This collar, as your readers are 

 doubtless aware, is composed of a leaden trough 

 surrounding the tree, and designed to be filled with 

 oil, and a roof of lead which projects over the 

 trough and sheds the rain. The leaden collar, 

 when properly a])plied and carefully attended to, is, 

 doubtless, as efficient a ]n'otection as can be design- 

 ed. But there are several objections to the use of 

 the collar ; it is costly ; the rain in our driving 

 storms is apt to drive in under the roof and float 

 out the oil ; the substance from which the collar is 

 made will not allow of much jjlugging, and if they 

 are not watched, the weight of the material is apt 

 to give the trough a slant, and so drain the oil from 

 one side, and thus give free j)assage to the moth ; 

 again, the oil soon becomes a thick, glutinous mass, 

 needing but the addition of the dead bodies of a 

 few moths to furnish am])le means of passage to the 

 enemy ; or the dust and dirt may blow in, and furn- 

 ish bridging on a larger scale; and, lastly, spiders, 

 from the near proximity of the edge of the trough to 

 the edge of the roof al)ove, are much in the habit of 

 connecting the two by their webs, and so give another 

 means of avoiding the snare of cruel man. There are 

 other ol)jections that might lie made against the 

 use of the leaden collar. As the time is now at hand 

 when the intelligent flirmer will be devising some 



