440 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
about three hundred worms, and each worm, as already stated, 
devours two leaves daily. Six hundred leaves are each day 
stripped from each tree on which there is one of these nests. 
An hour’s labor therefore saves to the orchard six thousand 
leaves daily, for the space of two or three weeks. Where else 
can an hour’s labor be so profitably devoted as in destroying 
these worms'? Surely men who are such close economists, when 
they are apprised of these facts, will never allow one of these 
nests to remain upon their trees for a single day. 
Some persons do not allow any wild cherry trees to grow on 
their lands, in consequence of the numbers of these caterpil¬ 
lars which they breed. But the orchards of such men are 
probably about as much infested with these insects, coming in 
to them from the fields and forests of their neighbors, as they 
would be were wild cherries growing upon their own lands. 
And valuable as the timber of this tree is for cabinet work, we 
cannot recommend its extermination. It appears to be the 
young, thrifty growing trees of this species which are the espe¬ 
cial favorites of these insects. Large old trees are rarely infest¬ 
ed to a great extent, especially when trimmed of their limbs to 
a considerable height from the ground. And even if every wild 
cherry tree in our country was cut down and not a caterpillar’s 
nest was tolerated in any of our orchards, these insects would con¬ 
tinue to sustain themselves, though no doubt in greatly dimin¬ 
ished numbers, upon the other species of cherry and upon the 
thorn apples and other trees and shrubs on which they are able 
to subsist and thrive. 
As the wild black cherry is so much preferred to the apple or 
any other tree by these insects, and as it is easier to destroy a 
hundred nests upon one tree than a quarter of that number 
where they are scattered upon different trees, it strikes me that 
this tree may perhaps be turned to a valuable account as a decoy 
for these insects. If one or two cherry trees are standing in the 
fences on each of the sides of an orchard, the eggs of these 
insects it is probable will nearly all be deposited upon these 
trees which otherwise will be scattered over all the trees in the 
orchard. These trees can be kept trimmed and headed down so 
that all parts of them will be readily accessible. The ends of 
