59 



cover over with sand. Finish with a top dressing of fresh wood ashes or 

 slacked lime. If the tree is not too far spent it will send out young 

 roots above the wound and finally recover. 



Two other insects damaging to orange trees are to be noticed, 

 These insects are very dissimilar in appearance, but the injury done by 

 them very similar. One insect is a spider with a long slender body. 

 When at rest its fore legs extend forward and the hind legs backward 

 and all parallel with the body which clings closely to the branch or 

 leaf on which the insect rests. In this position it would frequently be 

 taken for a piece of moss or a rusty place on the bark. It is so very 

 timid that it at once attempts to conceal itself in this crouching posi- 

 tion on the approach of any person. This position not only enables it 

 often to elude observation but generally to escape suspicion. I have 

 watched it closely for two years and was very slow to believe that a so 

 innocent looking. thing could have done the damage universally found 

 in its immediate presence. But I am fully satisfied that it is the cause 

 of one of the forms of the disease known as the die-back. Early in 

 the morning the insect is usually found on the tenderest shoots of the 

 orange, and wherever found the indications are the same. If the 

 s^hoot is very young and tender it begins at once to lose its freshness and 

 ceases to grow, a little later it assumes a rusty appearance and finally 

 dies. If the shoot is a little older when attacked or if the insect has 

 moved lower down after exhausting the extremity of the shoot and 

 attacks the stronger wood, a blister appears on the bark, and if exam- 

 ined, a collection of sap is found just under the puncture made by the 

 insect, and between the bark and the wood. The sap soon hardens 

 into a gum. If the sap is flowing very vigorously at the time the 

 bark is punctured, a little sap flows from the puncture and hardens 

 into gum. The branch is evidently poisoned by their operations, and 

 frequently dies down to the wood of the previous growth. If the tree 

 is abandoned to the insect the young wood is soon all killed. The 

 young roots die with their corresponding shoots and the tree is greatly 

 enfeebled. The tree makes, however, a desperate effort to recover, and 

 starts from almost every leaf a new shoot. It is what the insects 

 desire and they now begin to assail these young shoots in the bud. 

 When attacked thus early they at once die and the bark of the 



