444 



HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



dosfuotiTe. The scales are hard, dry, and, 

 shining, and often found in large numbers crowd- 

 ed together, even to the extent of frequently 

 lying one above another. When they find their 

 way to the skin of the fruit, which they some- 

 times do, more especially on wall trees, they 

 destroy its beauty, and give it a disgusting ap- 

 pearance. An excellent fig. is given of it in 

 " The Gardeners' Chronicle," 1843, p. 735, and 

 also a lucid description by Ruricola, who says, 

 " The scales are hard, dark, and shining, exceed- 

 ingly like a, minute mussel-shell, but rather 

 more elongated. They are slightly curved, 

 transversely wrinkled, roundish at the tail, and 

 attenuated at the head, which is semi-cylindri- 

 cal, less opaque, and of a I'usty colour. They 

 adhere firmly to the bark, having the margins 

 broad beneath and woolly ; and when dislodged, 

 the space they had covered appears white. 

 Within the shell is found a fleshy green female, 

 occupying part of the cavity towards the taper- 

 ing extremity, the hinder space being entirely 

 filled with white oval eggs, amounting sometimes 

 to fifty or more. They are rather larger than in 

 most species, I think, and produce little white 

 fat Cocci, with two antennae and six legs. They 

 are lively, and run about for several days; but 

 having fixed themselves, then grow, and by de- 

 grees become very different creatures from what 

 they were immediately after their birth." Syrin- 

 ging the trees during winter with boiling water, 

 boiling chamber-ley, lime-water laid on with a 

 brush, and dusting the branches with powdered 

 lime while they are wet, scraping the bark with 

 a wooden knife, so as to destroy the females 

 without bruising the tree, and even painting the 

 branches with train and linseed oil, have all been 

 tried with little apparent effect. We have found 

 spirits of tar laid on during winter most effec- 

 tive ; and could it be applied with safety during 

 May, when the young ones are creeping from 

 under the shell, there is no doubt that it would 

 destroy every one of them. The branches have 

 also been painted over with thick coats both of 

 clay and lime-water, thinking to suffocate the 

 insects ; and some with a like view have recom- 

 mended painting them over with glue. 



The apple saw-fly (Tenthredo testudinea Ste- 

 phens and King), fig. 192, may be detected 

 about the end of June and beginning of July, 

 when the apple fruit is about one -fourth its 

 full size, and is found in such fruit as has 

 fallen from the trees. " By collecting some," says 

 J. 0. W., in "The Gardeners' Chronicle," 1847, 

 p. 852, " which had only recently fallen, we dis- 

 covered the insect before it had time to escape ; 

 thus learning one point in its economy— namely, 

 that the insect does not eat its way out of the 

 apple whilst the fruit is upon the tree, and then 

 crawl down the branches and stem of the tree to 

 go into the earth, or to make a cocoon upon 

 the bark ; but that, on the contrary, it waits 

 patiently until the fruit falls from the want of 

 support afforded by the more vital portion of 

 the apple which it has consumed. And here we 

 may observe that this is perhaps the most im- 

 portant fact for the cultivator, as it lets him into 

 the secret of the locality in which the insect 

 passes its inactive and helpless state, and there- 



APPI.K SAW-FLY AND GRUB. 



fore is that in which it may be most advanta- 

 geously combated. 

 192. These caterpillars 



are rather pale, 

 dirty, bufPcolour- 

 ed; the head tawny, 

 and with a very 

 slenderpinkish line 

 down the back; the 

 body, is very much 

 wrinkled trans- 

 versely, and is fur- 

 nished with three 

 ordinary pairs of 

 thoracic legs, with 

 six pairs of very 

 short ventral pro- 

 legs, and with an- 

 other pair of the 

 latter at the extre- 

 mity of the body, 

 thus making twenty 

 legs in the whole. 

 These larvae, hav- 

 ing eaten their way 

 out of the apples, 

 descend into the 

 earth, where they 

 form their cocoons, 

 and remain in- 

 active until the following year. In the middle 

 of the month of May we again directed our 

 attention, to the same apple trees which had 

 afforded us these larvae in the preceding summer, 

 and which were now coming into full blossom. 

 We now observed many specimens of the perfect 

 saw-fly, produced from the Jast year's larvae, 

 flying about the blossoms, within which they 

 settled ; and we distinctly saw one of the females 

 bend down the extremity of the body in the act 

 of depositing an egg within the blossom ; but 

 they are at this time exceedingly timid, so as 

 not to allow of our approach. The upper sur- 

 face of the body is shining black, the front and 

 sides of the head, and the shoulders, antennae, 

 legs; and under side of the body, being pale 

 orange-coloured, and the wings are slightly 

 stained with brown." As the apples attacked by 

 this insect fall to the ground before ripening, the 

 remedy presents itself to us — namely, gathering 

 the fallen fruit, and consigning it to the nearest 

 fire. 



The American orchardists are greatly annoyed 

 by several species of insects apparently not in- 

 digenous to Europe. As, however, the Aphis 

 lanigera, or American blight, as it is usually 

 called, was imported to the New World from the 

 Old, and the almost equally destructive codlin 

 moth, Carpooapsa pomonana, has also been trans- 

 ported along with apple trees from Europe, it 

 is not at all improbable that some of these in- 

 sects may be introduced to Britain, now that 

 many of the best sorts of American apples are 

 yearly brought over for planting in our gar- 

 dens. Of these the apple - borer {Saperda 

 bimttata) of American entomologists, Clisio- 

 campa Americana, a species of lackey moth, dif- 

 ferent from those of the same family that are 

 troublesome in Europe ; A nisopteryx pometaria 



