1871 



THE POMOLOGIST ANT) GARDENER. 



317 



The worm on leaving the apple — does so always 

 in the night — at once seeks a safe place in which to 

 spin its cocoon, in which to undergo its transfor- 

 mations. Its instinct is such that it will find a sufc 

 place if there is one within its reach. When it finds 

 the most suitable place it covers itself first with ma- 

 terial from the surface on which it is on, then with 

 a fine silken web spun from its mouth ; then ap- 

 pearing as at i, and called a cocoon. As soon as its 

 cocoon is finished it changes its form into a chrysa- 

 lis, as figured at d, and in from 14 to 17 days, this 

 chrysalis changes to a moth as figured at j. The 

 moth is the prettiest and liveliest of all the small 

 moths, and may at once be known from any other 

 small moth by its having bright bronze or gold col- 

 ored markings on the ends of its wings, which glis- 

 ten in the light like dark burnished gold. It is sel- 

 dom seen, as it is in motion only late in the even- 

 ing or night. I have been in large orchards con. 

 stantly for 30 years, and have never seen but one 

 specimen, except those I had bred from the worms. 

 The moth remains closely hid during the day. The 

 moths of this first brood pair at once, and the 

 females soon commence to deposit their eggs on the 

 apples. They do not use the calyx or eye of the 

 apple exclusively for this purpose as did their pa- 

 rents of the first brood, but use also every scar, or 

 puncture of other insects, or where two fruits are 

 in contact they insert their eggs between them. 

 The eggs immediately hatch and the young worms 

 burrow into the fruit, feed and grow, and in a few 

 days over a month get their growth, come out and 

 seek a place to spin up in as before described. A 

 small portion of the earliest of this brood change 

 at once to chrysalides, and come out in fifteen days a 

 moth, and lay eggs for a small third brood of worms. 

 But the great majority of them remain as worms 

 until the following spring, when here, about 

 the first of May, a little earlier or later owing to 

 earliness or lateness of the season, they change to 

 chrysalides and then to moths ready for anothe 

 season's destruction. 



We have followed the apple worm through a sea- 

 son, know its periods, changes and habits. Now, 

 how shall we destroy it? We cannot destroy it in 

 the moth state, for as it docs not feed, we cannot 

 poison it nor drown it. It is not attracted by lights 

 in the night, so we cannot burn it. It is so snugly 

 hid during the day that we cannot find it to kill it. 

 While it is still feeding in the apple, we could only 

 destroy it by picking off the apples, and destroying 

 both to gather; but this would be too tedious, so the 

 only chance that remains for us is to attack it is 

 after it leaves the apple and before it becomes a 

 moth. Luckily for us our chance for a wliolesale 

 destruction of it at this time is good. As before ob- 

 served, when it leaves the apple its instinct teaches 

 it to at once find a retraat out of reach of its many 

 deadly enemies in which to spin its cocoon. With 

 many caterpillars the cocoon itself is a sufficient 

 protection, but not for this. The. silk of its cocoon 

 is papery and tender, and as the worm is a rich lit- 

 tle tit bit for any insectiverous^bird, large ant, spi- 

 der, or other carniverous insect, it will find a crack 

 or crevice where it can stow itself away out of 

 reach of these deadly enemies. For some reason 

 of their own, the worms of the first brood will not 

 accept of a shelter, no odds how complete it may 

 be on or near the ground, if it can possibly find one 

 a little removed from it. 



It has been stated as a fact by professional ento- 

 mologists, that the apple often falls to the ground 

 with the still immature worm in it, and that hogs 

 and sheep should be kept in the orchard to eat up 

 the fruit as soon as it falls, worm and all, and thus 

 destroy it. This is not the fact, and is liable to 

 mislead. The apples do not fall from the tree with 

 the worms of the first brood in them, except it be a 

 few ot the earliest maturing apples. The apples 

 arc usually killed and eventually fall oil", but not 

 until after the worms have left them. Many of the 

 apples of some varieties wither and remain on the 

 trees until the next spring. Here about the 13th of 

 June, the earliest worms reach their growth, and 

 leave the apple during the night, and either let 

 themselves down by a web to the ground, and then 

 seek the trunk of the tree, or crawl down the trunk 

 seeking a shelter to spin their cocoons in. The 

 natural shelter provided by nature is the dry scales 

 of dead bark that have warped their edges away 

 from the trunk, and the fissures in this old bark. 

 This shelter is poor even on old trees, and on young 

 ones scanty and poorer. Now if we in our kind- 

 ness or "otherwise" provide the poor, defenceless, 

 timid worms with a perfect shelter, a regular Astor 

 House as it were, compared to anything else, they 

 would be likely to find we will get them aU ; yes, I 

 say ALL, and mean it for our guests, and we can kill 

 them with ease. Such a shelter we have in Thom- 

 as Wier's Apple Worm Trap, the joint invention 



