FACT NUMBER THREE. 45 



die alburnum, or sap, as early as the first Autumn after the 

 seed has sprouted. It also feeds on the roots of the young 

 tree, saps their energies, imparts to the leaf a decaying cast, 

 called the Yellows, and often destroys the hope of life be- 

 fore the seedling has attained a single year's growth. 



Observation proves that this worm winters in the tree 

 near the root, and that in the Spring, it forsakes its burrow 

 in the form of the aforementioned Bug, and is prepared to 

 traverse both the earth and the air. In this form, it reaches 

 the fruit of the tree, where it not only perforates the tender 

 skin, — stinting the growth and marring the beauty of the 

 peach, and often causing it to die and drop to the ground, but 

 there deposites an egg, which in time becomes a grub, and 

 the grub again becomes a bug, and so the plague is perpetu- 

 ated as a primeval cause. After the dead peach has lain on 

 the ground a short period, the white grub has been found 

 full of life and with instinct sufficient to leave its decaying 

 habitation, and make its way through the grass, &c, to the 

 root of the tree from which the fruit fell, with the view no 

 doubt of finding safe winter quarters. Here, burrowed with 

 the little wire worm, a native of the soil, in the gum which 

 has oozed from the tree, it passes the cold season, chafing 

 and irritating the tree, as best the torpid state will admit, 

 until the whole plant perishes both root and branch. 



The bug, too, after having stung the fruit and destroyed 

 its life, has been found to go back to the root of the tree also, 

 where it deposites other eggs, which subsequently multiply 

 the army of worms and bugs, which in their turn make war 

 upon this frail tree and its fruit if they have any thing left to 



