72 THE APPLE BLOSSOM 
If you study an apple carefully and cut a vertical section of it, 
and then examine the core, you may be able to solve this problem. 
How the Worm gets into the Apple 
Probably some of the apples were wormy and you wondered 
how the worm got ito the apple, particularly if you could not 
find any hole for him to get in by. 
This’ is how it happened. In the spring, when the trees are in 
blossom, a smal] moth called the coddling moth came out of its 
chrysalis and flew about the apple blossoms. After the petals 
dropped off, and while the baby apple was very small, the moth 
Jaid an ege in the upturned cup made by the five points of the 
calyx. 
The egg soon hatched into a sinall worm, which bored its way 
into the apple. There the worm made its home and lived by 
eating the apple until the apple was ripe and dropped off the tree. 
In the fall the worm eats its way out of the apple and crawls 
to the tree trunk. 
It finds a little crack or place in the bark and spins itself a 
cocoon, and there it sleeps all winter until the spring comes, when 
it hatches out mto a moth. This moth lays eggs in young green 
apples, just as its mother did the year before, which hatch into 
apple worms ; and these, too, spin cocoons in the fall and come out 
as moths in the following spring. 
And so it goes on year after year, until you may well wonder 
why you ever have any apples without worms. It is here that 
the birds are your friends. They like to eat the apple worms as 
much as the worms like the apples. They cannot get at the 
