164 



[November, 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Strawberries. — Do not kill your plants by 

 kindness, in covering them before the proper 

 time! The object of mulching Strawberry 

 plants during winter is to keep the frost 

 in the ground. Therefore, covering before 

 the ground is frozen cannot possibly pro- 

 duce the desired effect, and must, to the 

 contrary, result into exactly the opposite, 

 that is, in keeping the frost out. In northern 

 regions, where the ground is covered with 

 snow for the greater part of winter, plants 

 keep usually better than in warmer latitudes, 

 where they become exposed to the frequent 

 changes of freezing and thawing. The last 

 week in November is early enough, and in 

 many seasons it may safely be deferred till 

 the middle of December. There is less dan- 

 ger in leaving plants uncovered all winter 

 than in covering them too soon. 



Protecting Grape -Vines. — All varieties not 

 thoroughly hardy should receive some winter 

 protection to secure best results, and it is 

 claimed by many that it pays to give protec- 

 tion to the hardiest kinds even. Some 

 growers attribute their success with Del- 

 aware, Duchess, Roger's Hybrids, etc., 

 simply to covering, while their neighbors as 

 signally fail with the same varieties. As the 

 treatment in both cases is exactly alike, the 

 different results can only be attributed to 

 the protection given in the one case and its 

 omifjsion in the other. 



The process is simple, and depends on the 

 extent of the operation. After the vines 

 have shed their leaves and matured their 

 wood, they should be pruned, and, on the 

 approach of cold weather, loosened from 

 the trellis, bent down on the ground, and 

 held there with stakes, rails, or something 

 similar. This is sometimes found sufficient, 

 especially where snow lies till late in spring. 

 If not satisfied with this dependence, a 

 slight covering of leaves, straw, corn-stalks, 

 limbs of evergreens, will prove effectual. If 

 danger is to be apprehended from the depre- 

 dations of mice, which in some sections are 

 very troublesome, a slight covering of earth 

 on the tops is all that is necessary. It should 

 be remembered that it is the young wood of 

 the present season's growth that is to be pro- 

 tected, as this contains the buds in which 

 are the embryo fruit cluster for next year's 

 crop. Of course, similar protection would 

 not hurt the old wood, but it is not always 

 feasible to provide it. 



But the main condition necessarily pre- 

 ceding all this, on which depends the success 

 or entire failure of the whole operation, is 

 the maturity and thorough ripening of the 

 wood. We saw a case in point, where an ex- 

 pert was called in to do the work, to be sure 

 that it was properly performed, and this 

 spring when the vines were lifted a large 

 proportion (about seventy-five per cent.) 

 had lost every fruit-bud, and were making 

 new tops from the trunks. Such failures 

 can be accounted for only on the supposition 

 that the wood was not thoroughly ripe, a 

 condition which we cannot always determine 

 with absolute certainty. To secure ripe 

 wood, we should endeavor to prevent late 

 growth, by pruning or otherwise checking it 

 so as to induce early maturity. 



THE BAG OR BASKET WORM. 



One of the most peculiar and destructive 

 of our injurious insects is the Bag Worm, 

 and, as it is getting to be a wide-spread and 

 serious pest, a knowledge of its habits 

 should be known by all. To begin at the 

 beginning, it may be taken as a fact that 

 many persons have seen strange cocoons, or 

 cocoon-like bodies, about two inches long 

 and somewhat spindle-shaped, suspended by 

 the larger end to the naked branches of 

 trees and shrubs during the winter sea- 

 son. An examination of these cocoons 

 will show that, besides the remains of 

 an old insect, they contain a number of 

 eggs. These eggs hatch in early summer, 

 producing small caterpillars. The " worms " 

 leave the old case and begin their destruc- 

 tive work of feeding upon the leaves of 

 various plants. The caterpillar soon fixes 

 itself upon a leaf by its fore legs, throws its 

 body in an upright position, and begins to 

 spin a cocoon or silken case for itself, and 

 finally covers it with bits of leaves, etc. As 

 the "worm" continues to grow, the case or 

 covering is increased in size and thickness, 

 so that in a short time the insect no longer 

 holds its body upright, but lets it hang down, 

 while holding to and moving along upon the 

 support by means of the fore legs, which, 

 with the head, extend outside of the casing. 

 The whole feeding or destructive state of 

 this bag worm is spent with its body thus 

 covered. Wherever the " worm " goes on its 

 foraging expeditions the bag goes with it; 

 and at the slightest indication of danger the 

 exposed portion of the insect is quickly with- 

 drawn within the mouth of the bag. 



The use of the protective coat which the 

 bag worm spins for itself is quite obvious. 

 Birds are natural enemies to insects, and by 

 means of this silken coat, covered with vari- 

 ous leaves and small sticks, the inclosed 

 "worm" is enabled to go about its work 

 without attracting attention, and when seen 

 by the birds it is no tempting morsel before 

 their watchful eyes. This is not the only 

 example of a provision for self-protection 

 among the insect tribes. 



When the "worm" finishes its feeding, it 

 fastens its ease to some twig, but not to a 

 leaf or its stalk — that would fall! — and it 

 passes into the inactive or pupa state, and 

 afterward becomes a moth. It is stated by 

 those who have watched the development of 

 the bag-worm in all its stages, that the male 

 moth leaves the cocoon, while the female 

 does not — she laying her eggs within it, and 

 afterward dying there. This completes the 

 round or cycle in the life of the bag-worm, 

 namely: The eggs are carried through the 

 winter, within the very noticeable "bags" 

 which are hung upon the branches of various 

 trees and shrubs. The eggs hatch in early 

 summer, and the "worms" begin their de- 

 structive feeding, at the same time spinning 

 for themselves a protecting bag or cocoon, 

 which they carry with them through all their 

 changes from place to place. 



The bag worms are not very limited in their 

 diet, and they sometimes come in such num- 

 bers as to entirely strip the shrubs in a few 

 days — if not in a few hours. The applica- 

 tion of any poison has not proved of much 

 effect. The only remedy is to remove the 

 "worms" by hand-picking; when they are 

 numerous, and the field for their destructive 

 labor is great, this is a large piece of work. 

 It would be a very wise preventive of de- 



struction to remove and destroy all the 

 cocoons in winter, thus killing the pests in 

 the egg state. 



It may be interesting to some to see the 

 name under which the bag or basket-worm 

 is known to science — here it is: Thyridqp- 

 terys ephemcrwformis. If long names could 

 kill noxious insects, we should certainly have 

 no cause to complain of this one. 



Dr. B. D. Halsted. 



REMOVING DEAD BRANCHES. 



There has always been considerable diver- 

 sity of opinion among orchardists whether 

 it is best for the general condition of a tree 

 to remove dead or dying branches at once, 

 or to leave them until entirely dry. Each 

 system had its advocates. Recent experi- 

 ments, especially those of Professor C. E. 

 Bessey, of the Iowa Agricultural College, 

 communicated to the New York Tribune, 

 throw entirely new light on this question, 

 the conclusions of which are of great im- 

 portance to every fruit-grower, and may 

 change materially the customary modes and 

 seasons of pruning trees and shrubs. 



The Professor says : " Evaporation of 

 water from plants was long supposed to be 

 a physiological process, and was considered 

 to be entirely different from ordinary physi- 

 cal evaporation. As long as this view was 

 held the process was called transpiration, to 

 distinguish it from the physical process. 

 The breathing-pores, the stomata, which 

 occur in the epidermis of all leaves in great 

 numbers, were supposed to be organs of 

 transpiration, which was considered to be 

 one of the most important functions of the 

 leaf. 



"Within a few years, however, our knowl- 

 edge of these matters has been greatly in- 

 creased, and we now know that the escape 

 of water from the leaf does not differ in any 

 way from the evaporation of water from any 

 other moist surface. A leaf loses water 

 simply because it is a watery structure ; its 

 epidermis is designed to prevent this loss, 

 and the breathing-pores, with their power 

 of opening and closing, are for the same 

 purpose. A leaf, instead of being an organ 

 of evaporation, is actually a structure in 

 which evaporation is quite successfully 

 checked. 



' ' Careful experiments made under my su- 

 pervision, in the Iowa Agricultural Col- 

 lege, in 1880, by Miss Ida Twitchell, a 

 graduate student, demonstrated that the 

 evaporation from a moist piece of dead 

 wood was exactly like that from a living 

 leaf. Now, when a dead branch is large 

 enough to keep continually moist in the 

 interior it will in dry air constantly lose 

 water by evaporation from its surface. This 

 water so lost is taken from the tree, and 

 must have been supplied directly or in- 

 directly by the living portions. Moreover, 

 it must be remembered that a living branch 

 is well protected against loss of water 

 through evaporation, by the epidermis which 

 covers all its surface when young, or the 

 impervious corky bark which is always 

 found on it when older. When a branch 

 dies, these protecting devices soon fall into 

 decay, and the water, so carefully guarded 

 by the living parts of the plant, is wasted by 

 evaporation." 



