UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



all seasons the downy and the hairy to the good 

 of the trees, the yellow-bellied often to their injury. 

 The two former search for the eggs and the larvae 

 of the insects that infest the trees, as do the nut- 

 hatches and the chickadees, which come quite as 

 regularly; but the yellow-bellied comes for the life- 

 blood of the trees themselves. He is popularly 

 known as the "sapsucker," and a sapsucker he is. 

 Many apple-trees in every orchard are pock-marked 

 by his bill, and occasionally a branch is evidently 

 killed by his many and broad drillings. As I write 

 these lines, on September the 26th, in my bush 

 tent in one of the home orchards, a sapsucker is 

 busy on a veteran apple-tree whose fruit has often 

 gone to school with me in my pockets during my 

 boyhood days on the farm. He goes about his work 

 systematically, visiting now one of the large branches 

 and then a portion of the trunk, and drilling his 

 holes in rows about a quarter of an inch apart. 

 Every square foot of the trunk contains from three 

 hundred to four hundred holes, new and old, cut 

 through into the inner, vital cambium layer. The 

 holes are about the size of the end of a rye-straw, 

 and run in rings around the tree, the rings being 

 about a half an inch apart. The newly cut ones 

 quickly fill with sap, which, to my tongue, has a 

 rather insipid taste, but which is evidently relished 

 by the woodpecker. He drills two or three holes, 

 then pauses a moment, and when they are filled 



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