200 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



from the plants into pans full of salt and water or vinegar, has been 

 approved ; but this must prove unavailable in large extents of ground. 

 The field for new discoveries in this line is open, and any one who 

 finds a new and practicable means of diminishing the number of this 

 or any other of these little destructives, will be considered in the light 

 of a public benefactor. 



It is impossible, of course, in a paper of this kind, to enumerate 

 one-quarter of the insects which are productive of injury to the crops, 

 and I will mention but one more, which, although one would think 

 we were sufficiently well acquainted with, yet some of the inquiries 

 received the past summer show an almost incredible ignorance of its 

 habits. 



The common apple tree or lackey caterpillar, Clisiocampa Ameri- 

 cana, of Harris. The eggs of this moth can be seen in the fall and 

 winter, in great numbers, clustered around the small twigs of apple, 

 wild cherry, and other trees, covered with a water-proof varnish to 

 withstand the winter storms, and now should be the time for destroy- 

 ing them by examining the trees and removing the eggs ; these should 

 be collected in boxes and burned. If suffered to remain, in the fel- 

 lowing April there will begin to .come forth from these eggs crowds 

 of little woolly caterpillars, which assemble in the nearest and most 

 commodious fork of the tree and begin to build their tents, from 

 which they make regular forays in fine weather, and devour every 

 leaf in a very short space of time, while they increase correspondingly 

 in size until they measure two inches in length, have a glossy black 

 head, a long white stripe on the back, a dark yellow one on each side, 

 then a broad black one, and lowest a narrow yellow one. After they 

 are full grown they spin their cocoons — which appear as if sprinkled 

 with flour of sulphur — in cracks and crevices of fences, &c. In 

 about a fortnight the moth comes forth of a reddish brown, with two 

 white lines across each upper wing. The distance from the tips of 

 the wings when expanded, averages an inch and a half. Among the 

 various methods suggested, for the destruction of the caterpillar after 

 it has been suffered to escape from the egg, the most efficient, next 

 to removing the nest by a grasp of the hand and crushing it, is to 

 insert a long-handled brush into the nest, and twisting it round, bring 

 the whole to the ground and crush it underfoot ; a mullcn-head 

 attached to a pole, is a tolerable substitute, or a mop of rags, or 

 sponge saturated frequently with " strong soapsuds, strong whitewash 

 or cheap oil.'" This should be repeated a's often as once a week 

 while the caterpillars remain on the trees, early in the morning, at 

 noon or at night, and will produce a corresponding diminution in 



