1880.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



179 



enough to Ikivp counted every tubercle and 

 hair upon their bodies. 



About this matter of sharp juvenile eye- 

 sight, we on one occasion came near gettins a 

 eastii;ation because we alleged tliat we saw 

 tliousiuds of little wliile "snakes'' in the 

 vinegar, and could not demonstrate to our 

 elders tliat tliey were there. Hut, to return 

 to our subject, it really does not .seem to iis 

 that there arc more codlings now than there 

 were lifty or sixty years ago, although, in 

 proportion to the population, tliere mustl have 

 been a greater abundance of apples then than 

 now. It is also very doubtful to our mind, 

 notwithstanding all the clamor raised against 

 the codling moths, or all tlie remedies that 

 liave been discovered and applied to their de- 

 struction, whetlier their number has been 

 greatly diminislicd, or, perhajjs, ever will 1)(;. 

 'It seems to us that the remedy is to increase 

 ^ and improve the quantity and health of the 

 apple crop. One discovery we boys made, or 

 thought we made, more tlian lil'ty years ago, 

 was that the nunho apples wtue less infested 

 by the worms than any other variety. Wc 

 often visited the apple bins in the dark, after 

 we had retired to bed— tor tliey were in 

 proximity to our sleeping apartment up to the 

 holidays at least— and we wore always sure to 

 select the rambo bin, because we felt that 

 these might be eaten in the dark without the 

 cliances of swallowing worms. And yet the 

 rambo has become obsolete, and in many 

 places entirely e.xtinct, notwithstanding that 

 taking it " all in all," as an eating apple, it 

 never has been superceded. It is true its 

 quality becomes impaired after the month of 

 January or February, but from early autumn 

 up to the Clu'istmas holiday?, it was king in 

 our early days. As a culinary fruit the 

 rambo even then was considered inferior to 

 the vandeverc or the grindstone, two old varie- 

 ties that have also become obsolete. The 

 romanite, we thought, also shared in exemp- 

 tion from the codling. We thought the cod- 

 ling more partial to apples of a dryer and 

 more granular texture than the rambo and 

 the romanite. 



But a change seems to have come over the 

 spirit of our early dreams, and here we are in 

 this blessed year 1880, almost at our wit's 

 end to know how to circumvent the great foe 

 of the apple crop. For forty years or more 

 that healthful and luscious crop has been 

 gradually depreciating, or the codling moth 

 has been gradually aiipreciating, or both. 

 And this, too, notwithstanding during all 

 that long period untold numbers of remedies 

 have been devised, recommended and applied 

 to their de.stiuction or dimunition, without 

 apparent success as a whole. It seems almost 

 as if there was an arbitrary purpose in this, 

 instead of a natural consequence merely. 

 Those who are intiuenccd by the tirst proposi- 

 tion would entertain a strong desire to " trust 

 to luck," and hang up the horseshoe as all the 

 etl'ort worthy to be made ; but those who are 

 inrtuenced by the second proposition, would 

 entertain a more rational view, and perhaps 

 attempt to restore that equipoise in nature's 

 economy which seems to have been lost 

 through huiuan intervention. 



If a tree has but one hundred apples on it, 

 and each apple is infested by one or more cod- 

 lings, it becomes a calamity ; but if it has a 

 thousand, only one hundred of which are in- 

 fested, it is only a common casualty and little 

 account is taken of it ; and, perhaps that is 

 just "what's the matter." If we can increa.se 

 the crop of apples, and bring it up to the olden 

 time, there will be plenty of fruit for the 

 human family, as well as the codling family, 

 without the one standing much in the way of 

 the other. This increase must be assisted by 

 the increase of the area and the number of 

 trees, to bring their numbers more in harmony 

 with our increased population and consequent 

 demand. There is great eagerness to increase 

 the tobacco area, and the same energy must 

 be applied to the apple. 



The results of such increase, however, can- 

 not be experienced in a day, a month, nor in a 

 year, and may take a generation, and during 



that time, there will herhaps be a necessity to 

 fight tlie codling on its own |)ersonal line or 

 lines, and then^ is wliere the ditlicuUy comes 

 in, for tlie codling, like insects in general, has 

 at least four distinctly marked lines or plains, 

 upon which it may be met by its adversaries, 

 namely, the oro, the lurvn, the piqut and the 

 imngo. Heretofore, battle has been made with 

 it mainly on its tliird or juiiki jdane, because 

 on this plane it is (|uieseeut and most accessi- 

 ble. V^irious traps have been devised for its 

 destruction on this plane, with more or less 

 success, but its destruction here can only lake 

 place (ijflfr it has done all the damage it po.S8i- 

 bly can to the fruit it has infested, and hence 

 its adversaries are inlluenced not by the 

 damage it hcts already done, but by what mai/ 

 be done by its progeny, involving at most, only 

 future previnlion. Tying hay, straw, paper, 

 or rag bauds around the trunks of the trees, 

 removing them at intervals and pa.ssing them 

 through a common clothes wring<'r, will 

 doubtless crush the life out of all that may 

 collect therein to pupate ; but as they are very 

 small and may liii<l an aliimdance of other 

 places, under the loose scales of Ijark on the 

 trunks or branches for that purpose, these 

 should be carefully removc'd, in order to make 

 this remedy effectual. Fastening clap-boards 

 together with a single i)ivotal nail or screw, 

 with inter-spaces, and hanging them on the 

 trees, is said to form coverts for their [lupa- 

 tion, but these must be carefully examined 

 every day during the summer, else the horse 

 may be gone and ouly the harness left, when 

 we come to look after them. But, prior to all 

 this, apple growers must instr. ct tliemselves 

 what a codling is, before they assume the task 

 of destroying them ; nor must they expect to 

 meet a gigantic foe, butrather an insignilicant 

 Lilliputians. 



Efforts have also been made to fight the cod- 

 ling on its fourth line of attack and defense — 

 in its imago or moth form, but the success 

 has not been by any means equal to com- 

 batting it in the pupa form. The moth is a 

 night-tlier, and is seldom abroad during tlie 

 day. It is attracted by almost any lununous 

 object, hence luminous traps have been con- 

 trived to decoy it to its own voluntary de- 

 struction. A lamp burning near an open 

 window, during a summer evening, will some- 

 times draw multitudes of them to it, where 

 they perish by flying into its flame or against 

 the heated glass globe that may shield it. If 

 such a lamp is set in a large, shallow pan of 

 water, many more will be destroyed than 

 where the pan is omitted. Such a traji on a 

 calm evening may be set in the orchard, but 

 this is not absolutely neces.sary, as a light 

 will attract them from a great distance. 

 Millions of mcAhs of dillerent kinds, and 

 amongst them great numbers of codlings, are 

 killed every summer by Hying into or against 

 city street lamps, or the gas-lights burning in 

 grocery stores, and especially those in the 

 windows, and a few find their way to the 

 light in our sanvtum every summer, although 

 no orchard is very near us. Bottle traps, 

 with wide mouths and containing sweetened 

 water, will also attract and destroy many of 

 them. On one occasion we had aliout a 

 thousand moths sent to us that had been caji- 

 tured in one or two nights in such traps, and 

 among them one-third, at least, were apple 

 codlings. But these remedies are regarded as 

 still ineffectual, as a whole, for the moths 

 may have deposited their eggs before tiiey 

 were cai)turcd. .Something was wanted that 

 will make a " cleaner sweep " — something 

 that will lock the stable before the horse is 

 stolen. According to a paper on this subject, 

 read by Prof. A. J. Cook, of Lansing, Michi- 

 gan, before the Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, at the late Boston meeting, 

 a "new method of fighting certain injurious 

 insects" has been discovered. This method 

 anticipates the jiupa and the imago forms, or 

 incidentally strikes the latter in the act of 

 oviposition. He has learned from Mr. J. S. 

 Lockwood, of Lockport, Kew York, that trees 

 thoroughly sprayed with licjuid Paris Green, 

 about the •20th of May, bore apples which 



were wholly exempt from the ravage of the 

 ai)|)le codling. Acting upon the suggestion 

 of Mr. Lockwood, Prof. Cook himself sprayed 

 some Siberian crab-apple trees on the "ioth 

 of May, and again on the 'JOth of .June, 

 with Lciiiddii Purple — one talilesiioonful of 

 the poison to two gallons of water. On a care- 

 ful examination, made on the Uttli of August, 

 not a single " wormy " api)le was discovered, 

 although other trees, only a few rods distant, 

 and wiiich had not been sprayed with the 

 poisonous liquid bore a crop of fruit, nearly 

 the one-half ol whicli was wormy. The 

 reader will observe that this remedy is in- 

 tended to fight the codling on its first and 

 second, or «ra and ^(ri'a planes, and in- 

 cidentally on its fourth or imago plane, should 

 a female happen to be ovipositing. We must 

 confess that this is somewhat marvelous to us, 

 especially since Prof. Cook says that a few 

 apples "showed signs of the previous work of 

 the larva, but as no burrow extended more 

 than one-fourth of an inch, no harm was 

 done." From this we may infer that this 

 spraying follows the larva up into its liurrow 

 and dislodges it. It is also claimed that from 

 the small amount of poison applied to each 

 tree — not more than one-third of an ounce — 

 the cost of the remedy i? very trifiing. And 

 to make sure that no danger can arise from 

 this poisonous application, Prof. Cook "cut 

 from a portion of tlu^ apples on a part of the 

 tree where the poison had been applied in such 

 excess as to destroy the foliage, one hundred 

 of the blo.ssoms, the porticm where the poison 

 would be most sure to lodge, and submitted 

 them to I)i{. Kedzie for analysis, when not 

 a trace of the poison was found." This para- 

 graph is not clear to us. We stumble at the 

 term "blos.soms," unless by blossoms he 

 means what apple-growers usually term the 

 "Calyx," which is located at the lower end 

 of the ai)ple, and where the codling usually 

 deposits its eggs. It may seem singular that 

 this remedy bad not been discovered long 

 ago, especially since so much anxiety has been 

 manifested by fruit growers in many quarters. 

 We hojie, therefore ,"that there may be no mis- 

 take about it, that it inav not be merely in- 

 cidental, but that its results may be founded 

 upon the certain principles of cau.se and 

 effect. Of course, we may suppose that such 

 asmall quantity ofa weak, poisonous dilution 

 would soon be dissipated by the washings of 

 descending rain, and that in a very short time 

 no trace of it would be left ; hut it seems to 

 us that this carefulness to anticipate the ap- 

 prehensions of people who are prejudiced 

 against the application of poison to fruit and 

 vegetation that is used for human food, sounds 

 very much like the fire-test to which an iron 

 safe (containing a live "rooster" and a pound 

 of gilt-edged butter) was subjected. After 

 burning six cords of hickory wood on it, the 

 safe was opened, when the rooster was found 

 frozen to death, and the butter hard enough 

 to be put into a lathe and turned into cane 

 heads : evidently proving entirely too much. 



What we mean by incidental results may 

 be illustrated by a case that came under our 

 own experience. An individual who had a 

 fine English walnut tree on his premises, 

 seriously infested with caterpillars, applied to 

 us for a remedy to destroy them. After see- 

 ing them we concluded they were the larva of 

 Datana ministra, or "Handmaid Moth." 

 They had nearly defoliated his favorite tree, 

 and hence wc instructed him to attack them 

 in the evening, or after dark, as they would 

 then be likely to retire from the branches and 

 congregate upon the trunk ; or if he waited 

 until they were ready to "moult," they 

 would then come down low on the trunk, or 

 perhaps on the ground, and mass themselves 

 together, when they could be scalded, or 

 saturated with coal oil, set on fire, and 

 roasted. But this was too revolting to bis 

 feelings or too much trouble. .Some one 

 subseipienlly told him to bore an augur hole 

 into the trunk of the tree, fill it with pulver- 

 ized sulplun-, and drive in a plug. He did so, 

 and within two days every caterpillar dis- 

 appeared. He did not publish it, but he told 



