While We Prune the Orchard e ? ith .m -patch 



What to Look for as We Ply the Saw and Knife to Reduce the Insect Pest of Next Year. 



Can Be Gathered In. 



Entomologist, Univ. of Maine 



Some Winter Shelters that 



THE business of autumn is over. Fruit 

 and vegetable are stowed away in glass 

 jar or box of sand, each according to its 

 need. The garden plot has received its 

 late plowing. The winter preparations, as neces- 

 sary to man as to squirrel or field mouse, are 

 completed. With a feeling of relief we look 

 ahead to a lull in the activities of country life 

 between now and the impending rush of spring 

 duties. The peace of winter is with us and a 

 quiet sense of well earned rest steals over us. 

 Relief? Yes, while we catch our breath. But 

 a bit later we miss the outdoor and a touch of 

 uneasiness is upon us. Is our peace 

 indeed secure? If not it is worth 

 fighting for, be it horticultural or 

 any other honest sort. 



The woodpecker is tapping in the 

 orchard and cheerily from the leafless 

 boughs a bird with a black cap calls, 

 "Chick dee dee, dee dee, dee dee!' ' 

 Our staunch allies! They know the 

 spot for a winter campaign and what 

 slacker seats himself by the open fire 

 with idle book while sturdy birds pro- 

 claim that joy as well as duty are to 

 be found in the frosty air with its 

 stimulant for both mind and body? 



CO OUT come ladder and tools and 

 *-* we prune the orchard. We have 

 been overshadowed, perhaps, by gen- 

 eral troubles and personal worries 

 but, for the time being, the winds 

 blow such clouds where they list 

 and we feel fit for the task that is 

 also a pleasure. The ripping voice 

 of the saw and the clip of the prun- 

 ing hook reply to chickadee and woodpecker, — 

 a strange quartet making appropriate music of 

 the hour. 



With a proud sense of being judicious we 

 select the branches that must fall if we shape 

 the tree for grace as well as strength and have in 

 mind the proper distribution of sunshine among 

 summer leanness of boughs. 



But all the time we know that it is not simply 

 remodeling the orchard that we are about. The 

 side issues of that operation are no less important 

 than what we speak of as the main item and it is 

 a wasteful person who neglects the by-product 

 of any enterprise. 



With eyes alert we glance up and along the 

 branches and with a smile we recognize, in the 

 large gray-brown object securely woven to the 

 under side of a twig, the cocoon of the cecropia 

 moth. Destroy that? Well, not while there 

 are any kiddies, young or old, in the house. 

 We'll take that treasure box of snuggly woven 

 silk in to the warmth. Later on some day we 

 shall hear from inside it the sound as of a mouse 

 nibbling and know that a newly hatched moth 



has broken the pupal cell and is making its way 

 out through the walls of its prison. Have you 

 ever tried to tear one of these tough structures 

 with your strong fingers and wondered how so 

 frail a thing as a moth succeeds in making its 

 escape? On each shoulder it wears a tiny sharp 

 edged tool and with these it cuts an opening 

 through the enveloping fibers. 'Tis worth the 

 task of a day's pruning alone to win the pleasure 

 of watching that wonderful creature emerge from 

 its winter nest and cling by its downy legs while 

 its soft limp miniature wings increase in size. The 

 veins in them are swollen with an amber fluid 



R UT 



■D of 



The beautiful creature that emerges from the cecropia cocoon, half natural size 



Now is a convenient time to gather up the egg masses on fruit and other trees. From left 

 to right: (a) antique tussock moth not protected by covering; (b) ring of forest tent caterpillar, 

 a common pest; (c) egg rings from which orchard tent caterpillers hatch 



which rushes into them in the process of rapid 

 growth. Even as you watch you can see the 

 wings expand, the color pattern spreading its 

 area, the four small wabbly flaps become four 

 broad wings which hang quiet, except for an 

 occasional shift, while the moth bides the night 

 time for its first flight. 



No, do not destroy the cocoon of the cecropia 

 moth unless you have become so inured to the 

 sight of beauty that you have no further need of 

 seeing colors that the richest oriental rugs or 

 pan velvets can not rival. 



Brown-Tails in Folded Leaves 



what is that swinging from the tip 

 the branch? A few crumpled leaves 

 woven together and bound to the twig by silken 

 strands. Another cocoon? We cut into the 

 gray silk and find within soft lined cells packed 

 with tiny caterpillars. Brown-tails! These trees 

 were neglected last August or an arsenical spray 

 would have quieted those larvae before they 

 spun their cosy hibernaculum. Marvelous that 

 they can withstand the winter temperature, these 

 caterpillars still so young 

 that they measure only 

 about one fourth of an inch 

 in length. They are well 

 provided by nature for their 

 struggle for existence, fit to 

 survive if the measure of 

 their own needs only is to be 

 considered. Yet it is no per- 

 verted appeal to the law of 

 necessity we make when we 

 say the brown-tail must die. 

 A threat against our food 

 supply, a foe to our physical 

 comfort, a menace even to 

 life, swings from the tip of 

 the apple bough. They are 

 from one hundred to three 



hundred strong within that single silken fort for 

 they pack themselves tightly when they spin the 

 sufficient barrier between them and thewinterday. 

 Yes, on two scores this hunnish enemy must die, 

 its greedy appetite, dormant just now, must be 

 checked before it revives to bring disaster to 

 the unfolding leaves next spring; and the poison 

 barbs hidden among its hairs must not be given 

 an opportunity to scatter broadcast the affliction 

 that follows wherever the moulted skins of these 

 dangerous pests may chance to blow. 



Then clip off that winter-nest and throw it into 

 flames, — what could be simpler than that? 

 Well, in these complicated days few 

 matters can be settled so directly. 

 We remember, before that "hiberna- 

 culum" is destroyed, that the Gov- 

 ernment to which we pay taxes has 

 spent a deal of money importing, 

 rearing, establishing, and liberating 

 parasites to prey upon the caterpil- 

 lars of the brown-tail moth, and more 

 than one species of these parasites 

 seek shelter in the firmly woven nest 

 of their victim for an over-wintering 

 home. They are thus handy by when 

 the caterpillars feed in the spring 

 and grow to a proper size to be 

 killed. 



HpHUS it is if we burn the winter 

 -*- nest of the brown-tail we are 

 likely to destroy some of the best of 

 our allies. So we gather the nests 

 and keep them in an old keg until 

 the parasites thaw out in the spring 

 and take wing. In order that the 

 caterpillars do not escape, we apply 

 a band of sticky "tree tanglefoot" around the 

 keg. Why go to more trouble liberating parasites 

 than it is to spray the orchard in August or to 

 gather and burn the winter-nests at pruning 

 time? We might, perhaps, ask this question if 

 the brown-tail was confined to apple trees, for, 

 serious as the pest is, it is not difficult of control 

 under orchard conditions. But, as we know, the 

 caterpillar progeny of this moth accepts a range 

 of forty and more trees and shrubs for their 

 menu. Thus, in infested areas, Rose and other 

 bushes and certain shade trees on home grounds 

 and in parks, Wild Cherry tangles in neglected 

 corners, the hardwood groves about summer 

 resorts, and the forests themselves, — all stand 

 helpless before a small moth with snow white 

 wings and a tail tipped with a plush brush of 

 beautiful golden brown. 



So, though we may care for our orchards with 

 spray and pruning shears, it is to the parasites 

 we must look in large measure for relief in forest 

 areas and well they deserve the encouragement 

 of individual orchardists as well as of the Gov- 

 ernment. 



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