THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
knife, then with a flexible wire hunt out the larva 
and kill it; then cover the wound with wax. When 
all this is done, and you are sure that the tree is for 
the present rid of the pest, pile coal ashes around 
the trunk, leaving them mounded over the wound. 
A well-grown peach or plum tree will need half 
a bushel of ashes, while a bushel will not be too 
much for a large apple or pear tree. For quite 
young trees wrap each one with tarred paper, or 
waxed paper, six inches wide, and press it well 
down into the soil. The pear-tree borer works 
higher up, as a rule, and will be found somewhere 
about the limb joints. Bore him out with a flexible 
wire, and wax over the hole. Still another borer 
works occasionally in grape vines. Burn your 
prunings, in which the larvee invariably develop. 
Tent caterpillars and forest worms lay their eggs 
in belts, on young twigs, where they are glued 
tight and remain through the winter — to develop 
with the first warm suns of spring. ‘These must 
be hunted out when the foliage has fallen, and all 
winter they can be sought for and destroyed. What- 
ever eggs escape your vision and hatch out worms 
will be quickly detected in the spring by the webs 
they will at once spin, and these should be burned 
‘ [ 264 ] 
