THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



knife, then with a flexible wire hunt out the larva 

 and kill it ; then cover the wound with wax. When 

 all this is done, and you are sure that the tree is for 

 the present rid of the pest, pile coal ashes around 

 the trunk, leaving them mounded over the wound. 

 A well-grown peach or plum tree will need half 

 a bushel of ashes, while a bushel will not be too 

 much for a large apple or pear tree. For quite 

 young trees wrap each one with tarred paper, or 

 waxed paper, six inches wide, and press it well 

 down into the soil. The pear-tree borer works 

 higher up, as a rule, and will be found somewhere 

 about the limb joints. Bore him out with a flexible 

 wire, and wax over the hole. Still another borer 

 works occasionally in grape vines. Burn your 

 prunings, in which the larvae invariably develop. 



Tent caterpillars and forest worms lay their eggs 

 in belts, on young twigs, where they are glued 

 tight and remain through the winter — to develop 

 with the first warm suns of spring. These must 

 be hunted out when the foliage has fallen, and all 

 winter they can be sought for and destroyed. What- 

 ever eggs escape your vision and hatch out worms 

 will be quickly detected in the spring by the webs 

 they will at once spin, and these should be burned 



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