THE CANKER WORM. 143 



tive ill the darkest night even, than in the sunniest and warmest 

 days, to fkittcr about the trunks and branches of the trees in 

 search of the females, that are ready for pairing, having accom- 

 plished which, they pass on in search of others. The female 

 very soon after impregnation deposits her eggs upon the branches 

 of the tree in clusters of from twenty to a hundred or more, 

 and then having obeyed the universal law of nature (equally 

 applicable to animal and vegetable life) of providing for its re- 

 production, immediately dies. The eggs hatch just as the buds 

 open and the tender leaves put forth ; and the minute worms^ 

 scarcely visible, proceed at once to feed upon them, making but 

 little show until about the first of June, when, having attained 

 half their growth, they become very voracious from the loth 

 to the 21st of June. Having attained their full size and 

 stripped our apple and elm trees of every green leaf, they de- 

 scend either by their webs or the trunks of the trees, and bury 

 themselves in the ground from two to four inches deep, where 

 they become transformed into chrysalids, there to remain until 

 the coming frosts of November shall break their prison doors, 

 when they appear in a new form as described above. 



The object of the society in offering the liberal premium of 

 one hundred dollars was doubtless to develop the most effectual, 

 the most economical and simple protector to our orchards. 

 From time to time many cumbersome and costly appliances 

 (some patented and others not) have been offered to the public 

 as certain remedies ; and large sums of money have been ex- 

 pended in their purchase, ending only in the disappointment 

 and disgust of their purchasers. It is believed by your Com- 

 mittee that no plan of protection that has been devised is so 

 good as that practised more than half a century ago, of tarring 

 the trees ; the great difficulty attending which was the necessity 

 of applying it so often. 



A great improvement has been found in substituting printers' 

 ink, which does not dry so readily. Tlie best method of apply- 

 ing the ink is to take a strip of tarred paper, six or eight inches 

 wide (a year old is best), and tack it around the body of the 

 tree, after scraping off the roughest of the loose bark, and filling 

 up any irregularities of the tree with cotton batting or tow. 

 The paper should be put within one or two feet of the ground, 

 to prevent cattle from rubbing off the ink and smearing them- 



