788 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, I907-I908. 



which wormwood, or walnut leaves, have been boiled;— or with 

 an infusion of elder, from which I should entertain some hope of 

 success. The liquid may be safely appKed to all the parts of a 

 tree by a large wooden syringe, or squirt. 



"I should suppose that the best time for making trial of these 

 methods would be soon after the worms are hatched; For at 

 that stage of their existence they are tender, and the more easily 

 killed. Sometimes a frost happening at this season has destroyed 

 them. This I am told was the case in some places in the year 

 I794-" 



At a meeting of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture in 1866 

 the following statement was made by a Mr. Robinson :* 



"The canker worm is also troublesome, and the farmers in 

 my neighborhood have suffered much from its ravages. If you 

 go out in March, about half an hour after sundown, you will 

 see crowds of millers rising up from the ground. These crawl 

 up the trees and deposit their eggs, from which the worm in 

 Jime is hatched. Now, the best way to get rid of the future worm 

 is to prevent the miller from ascending the tree. My trees are 

 all guarded with a mixture composed of equal parts of tar and 

 urine, put in a band around the tree. It is not necessary to put 

 the tar upon cloth, because it does not hurt the tree to apply it 

 directly, and if spread upon a cloth, the worms can crawl under- 

 neath it. This application must be renewed every day while the 

 millers are ascending the tree. If ah examination is made the 

 morning after this application of tar and urine, the bark of the 

 tree will be found to be coated white with millers." 



In these early days it was not known that there are two distinct 

 species of canker worm, though it was known that some of the 

 adults appeared in fall and others in spring, as the following 

 quotation shows :f 



"Mr. David L)mian of Middlefield remarked that his section 

 of the state was a good region for the finer qualities of apples. 

 He had found his apples, too, to be a profitable crop. The 

 canker worm had been his greatest pest Against this worm he 

 had used tar as an application which had to be repeated every 

 evening for a long time, say forty times. The canker worm moth 



* Report Conn. Board of Agriculture for 1866, p. 81. 

 ^ Idem, p. 84. 



