ORCHARD PLANT LICE AND THEIR REMEDIES 
5 
UPE) HABITS 
The life habits of this insect may be briefly stated as follows: Early 
in the spring there will be a few living lice in protected places beneath the 
bark or under the dead bodies of the lice that were killed the previous fall, 
There will also be a large number of lice living over upon the roots of the 
tree beneath the surface of the ground. The lice that live over on top are 
all very small. Those living over upon the roots are of all sizes from 
the smallest to those that are fully grown. By the time that the buds begin 
to open in the spring, the lice that live over on top will locate on tender 
new bark and insert their beaks and begin to suck the sap of the tree and to 
grow in size. At the same time a greater or less number of small lice that 
live over winter about the crown of the trees, and perhaps some that came 
up from the roots, migrate to the top and begin to feed and grow. These 
lice start the round of development for the year on the tree tops. They 
are usually first detected by the fruit grower when the little lice have grown 
enough to secrete a white covering to their bodies which makes them ap¬ 
pear like little mouldy spots upon the bark. These lice increase very rapidly 
in number so that by the middle of June or first of July the tree may be 
very badly infested and the cottony secretion may be so heavy as to hang 
down and even fall from the bodies of the lice. 
The lice are all wingless until about the first of September when an 
occasional wigned louse may usually be found upon the trees. These lice 
leave the trees where they develop and fiy to others. Each of these winged 
lice gives birth to about four or five males and as many females. Before 
winter comes on, each female deposits a single egg and dies. No one seems 
to have followed this part of the life history of the woolly aphis in the 
orchard. It is supposed that these eggs hatch the following spring and start 
new colonies. 
Upon the roots of the trees the woolly aphis lives in large numbers the 
year around, the only difference in the winter being that the lice reproduce 
very slowly, so do not increase much in numbers. The cold weather seems 
never to be sufficient to kill them even in our coldest climates where the 
apple is grown. 
pre:vkntion 
Prevention is nearly always better than the cure. Great care should be 
taken therefore, when setting out a new orchard, to prevent the introduction 
of this louse. Orchards are usually infested by the lice that are upon the 
roots of the nursery trees when they are set out. All nursery stock should 
be thoroughly disinfected either by fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas, or 
by very thorough spraying of the trees, both roots and branches, before they 
are set, with one of the remedies mentioned below for spraying tops. 
One method of preventing injuries from this louse is to have all apple 
trees upon Northern Spy roots, as Northern Spy seems never to be seriously 
attacked by this insect. 
If nursery . stock is received with roots “puddled,” covered with mud, 
the purchaser should insist upon this mud being thoroughly washed off. 
and the roots treated for woolly aphis, as this is one of the methods that 
the nursey man has of covering up woolly aphis upon his nursery stock. 
