74 



REMEDIES. 



There is no excuse, save that of gross negligence, for allowing 

 these pests to injure young fruit trees. The larval cases are so 

 easily picked off at a season when the orchardist has abundant 

 leisure, that it is easy to find time to attend to them. - I have been 

 in several orchards the past season in which these larvae were 

 sufiiciently numerous to seriously check the healthy development 

 of the trees; and I doubt not that a similar condition prevails in 

 hundreds of young orchards throughout the State. In some in- 

 stances I have found trees so infested that there was a larva lying- 

 in wait for almost every bud; and it is needless to state that al- 

 ready the effect of past injuries could easily be traced in the di- 

 minished vitality of the trees. Doubtless the method, so frequent- 

 ly mentioned above, of placing the picked cases in an open field, 

 away from trees, where the larvae will starve and their parasites 

 escape, is preferable to that of burning. Or, if the young trees 

 are infested with any other of the several leaf-eating species, they 

 may be killed by spraying with the arsenites, as recommended 

 elsewhere in this paper. 



In the nursery it is of the first importance that these pests 

 should be destroyed; and the nurseryman owes it both to his 

 patrons and to himself to see that the work is thoroughly done. 



It is often difficult to convince those most interested of the easy- 

 practicability of picking these cases off of nursery stock. I have 

 in mind an instance in which a nurseryman of unusual intelli- 

 gence, whose apple stock was infested by the leaf crumpler, being 

 advised by one of the leading entomologists of the State to put ^ 

 boys in the field to pick them off, regarded the idea as non- 

 sensical and impracticable; and he was only convinced of the ease 

 with which the work could be performed when shown the results 

 of a practical experiment made to test the matter, in which a boy 

 was placed in one of the infested fields with instructions to gather 

 all the cases on the young trees. In two hours thirty rows three 

 hundred yards long were gone over, and a half peck of the larval 

 cases gathered. When shown this accumulated mass of destroyers, 

 our friend was convinced, and at once hired boys to go over his 

 fields. He afterwards expressed himself as surprised and hie:hly 

 pleased with the result. The larval cases were picked off of ten 

 acres of one year apple stock, by two boys, in one and a half 

 days. 



