BURLAPPING. 



171 



from its use, although if it is not visited often and watched 

 carefully, other insects injurious to trees will use it as a 

 hiding-place. In the fall the larvae of the codling moth 

 (^Carpocajpsa pomonella^ Linn.) will crawl under the burlap 

 and gnaw away the bark while preparing a place to pupate ; 

 but if the burlap is watched and all injurious insects found 

 beneath it destroyed, its use will prove of great benefit to 

 the tree. Should it be applied to very young fruit trees 

 (which is seldom necessary, as a cloth thrown in a fork 

 of the tree may be used in such cases), there may be some 

 little danger that the cord, if large, will shrink too tightly 

 and crease the bark of the growing tree. 



Though the use of the burlap for the destruction of the 

 gypsy moth grew out of observation and experiment by the 

 employees of the State Board of Agriculture, later research 

 in the literature of economic entomology showed that similar 

 devices had been used in the past for other insects. 



Dr. Harris, in his report on the injurious insects of Massa- 

 chusetts (first published in 1841), writes as follows of the 

 use of bands for attractins" the larvae of the codlino- moth : — 



o o 



Mr. Burrelle says that if any old cloth is wound around or hung 

 in the crotches of the trees the apple worms will conceal themselves 

 therein ; and by these means thousands of them may be obtauied 

 and destroyed.* 



Kollar wrote of the use of the same method in Europe : — 



The following mode of destroying the insects injurious to fruit' 

 trees, communicated to me by M. Scheffer of Modling, is so simple 

 and yet so efficacious that I cannot do better than to lay it before 

 my readers. M. Scheffer lays loosely roUed-up pieces of old cloth 

 or blotting-paper in the forks of his trees. The caterpillars eat 

 during the night and while the dew is on the leaves in the morn- 

 ing ; but they seek protection from the heat of the day, and creep 

 into these rolls for that purpose. Thus it is only in the middle of 

 the day that these rolls shoukl be examined, and the caterpillars 

 concealed in them destroyed.! 



* ''A treatise on some of the insects injurious to vegetation," by T. "VV. Harris, 

 M.D., page 487. See also " New England Farmer," first series, Vol. 18, page 398. 

 t " Practical Entomologist," Vol. 1, page 83. 



