136 Bulletin 76 



recommended, but they are not very valuable aids in exterminating the in- 

 sects, though they do accomplish something. There is one trap, however 

 which though not set for the moths, does capture vast numbers of them. 

 The electric lights in our towns and villages are annually destroying 

 countless numbers of insects. Last season while the moths of the forest 

 caterpillars were most active the globes of the street lights in Burlington 

 were sometimes a third full of insects, largely of this species. 



I am well aware that the question which in this state has been most 

 anxiously asked. How can we save our sugar places ? has not been satis- 

 factorily answered. Nor can it be. I have given all the remedial and pre- 

 ventive measures known, and so far as the shade and the fruit trees are con- 

 cerned the methods named will prove effective, but they are not so appli- 

 cable to a large grove. If a town owned a steam spraying apparatus, this 

 might be used with success in any ordinary maple grove as well as on the 

 shade trees along the street. A spraying machine costing $200 or $250 

 would be a most useful piece of property in many of oup villages, and its 

 proper use would not only preserve the shade trees, but, in most cases, 

 prevent injurious insects from spreading from these to fruit trees. A large 

 number of the most destructive insects can be most effectively held in 

 check, if not destroyed, by spraying. A large spraying machine is too ex- 

 pensive perhaps for the ordinary farmer's bank account, but if a good 

 apparatus were purchased by a village and rented to owners of maple groves 

 it might be a good investment for both village and farmer. While it is not 

 a small task to spray a hundred or more trees, it is not so burdensome as 

 some may fancy. I think it has been the experience of most who have 

 tried it, that when once well started, the spraying of a considerable number 

 of trees requires less time and labor than would at first have been supposed. 

 If a sugar orchard has not been attacked, it may be very well protected by 

 banding, at least for that season. When, however, the trees are visited by 

 the moths which deposit their eggs on the upper branches, then as these 

 hatch the following season, there is no remedy but spraying. If neither 

 spraying nor banding is practicable, then all that the owner of a maple 

 grove can do is to hope that the parasites will be so abundant that, if not 

 that season, then next the enemy will be routed without his help. As we 

 have seen, this is not an idle hope. The effects of parasitism and disease 

 are already seen in this state in the large number of cocoons which failed 

 to develop and also in the small size of the egg clusters which has been 

 very noticeable of late. Slingerland' says of New York " We visited sev- 

 eral maple sugar bushes last year where the caterpillars had just finished 

 stripping the foliage from all the trees and we never saw so many parasitic 



I I*oc. cit. p. 561. 



