APPLE-TRUNK BORER — ITS EGGS. 



'13 



diameter, a neighbor enquired if tlie borer was among his trees, 

 saying it had killed nearly Jialf the trees in his orchard. This 

 was the first time his attention was directed to this insect, and on 

 examination he found that almost every one of his trees had from 

 one to five worms in them; and several were destroyed, beyond 

 all possibility of saving them. In one instance he has found 

 twenty of these worms in one tree. For a few years past they 

 have not been so numerous in his vicinity as they previously 

 were. He has kept a pretty accurate account of his fruit trees, 

 and finds that of all the apple trees he has planted, he has lost 

 one in every eight from the borer. The insect is more fond of 

 the quince, even, than it is of the apple, insomuch that he has 

 found it impossible to grow this fruit, the stalks, notwithstanding 

 all the care he has given them, being almost invariably riddled 

 by the borer. Though • he has set out very many quince trees 

 during the past sixteen years, he has never been able to get but a 

 dozen quinces, and these were gathered in the fall of 1853, when 

 all kinds of fruit were so abundant in his section of country. 



The accounts which have been given, and the ideas that are 

 prevalent respecting the burrow -which this worm excavates in 

 the trees which it attacks are very imperfect, and in part errone- 

 ous. It is the common opinion that it simply bores a cylindrical 

 passage upwards in the solid wood of the tree, which passage it 

 keeps clean and empty. If this were the case, a constant effort, 

 I think, would be required to prevent this footless worm from 

 falling to the bottom of its burrow. As we shall see, that part 

 of its operations whereby it does the most injury to the tree, has 

 been hitherto overlooked. 



The winged beetle makes its a{)pearance every year early in 

 June. Like other species of the family of long horned beetles 

 (Cerambycida) to which it pertains, it flies only by night. In the 

 course of this and the following month the female deposits her 

 eggs, one in a place, upon the bark, low down, at or very near 

 the surface bf the earth; but when these beetles are numerous, 

 some of their eggs are placed higher up, particularly in the axils 

 where the lower limbs proceed from the trunk. From each of 

 these eggs is hatched a minute grub, or more properly a maggot, 



