THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
57 
NIGHT PROWLING PEACH PESTS. 
Mr. Glasser, a fruit grower of Forest Lawn, on the 
shore of Lake Ontario, near Rochester, was consider¬ 
ably exercised in mind over the discovery of serious 
damage to his peach trees and his inability to find the 
pest. Finally he found the trees covered with beautiful 
pinkish-yellow worms which worked only at night and 
disappeared in the day time. He immediately sent for 
Professor Mark V. Slingerland, of the Cornell Experi¬ 
ment Station, at Ithaca, N. Y. Meanwhile the story of 
his discovery was detailed in the columns of a Roches¬ 
ter daily. 
Professor Slingerland describes the pest in the follow¬ 
ing communication : 
Editor The National Nurseryman : 
It was with considerable interest and much amusement 
that I read some of the accounts which appeared in a Roch¬ 
ester daily of my recent trip into Monroe county to investi¬ 
gate this nocturnal disturber of the quiet slumbers of the 
peach growers in that section.* How we “bug-hunters” 
usually suffer at the hands of the daily reporters with their 
hasty, vivid imaginations ! As only facts are wanted here 
I will not take the time to get even with them. 
The first that was heard of this pest here at the Experi¬ 
ment Station was about June i, 1893. Complaints came 
from two sources at nearly the same time. One from Rose, 
Wayne Co., and the other from Forest Lawn, near Roches¬ 
ter. The correspondent at the latter place (who, by the 
way, is a lady, and the ladies usually give us the best and 
most accurate detailed accounts of insect pests that we get 
in correspondence) sent specimens stating that she believed 
they were cut-worms. This first invoice of worms failed to 
reach us, but a second soon followed, and a glance sufficed 
to show us that the culprits were climbing cut-worms. 
Everyone, almost, is familiar with cut-worms as they usually 
occur in gardens about cabbages, etc., and the corn field. 
And for many years it has been known that some species 
(for there are several hundred kinds or species of them) 
would climb trees. The climbing kinds dO not differ mater¬ 
ially froni the ordinary somber-colored worms an inch or 
more in length, which cut off plants at the surface of the 
ground. The peach climbers were most of them, however, 
of a lighter, pinkish-yellow color. When the worms were 
received it was so late that they had done nearly all the 
damage to the trees that they would that season, and we 
carried on no experiments last year against them ; they 
were simply turned loose in cages here at the insectary and 
allowed to transform. Some may not know that all cut 
worms when they become full grown, which usually occurs 
in June or July, go into the ground, and there in a little 
earthern cell which they make they change to a brown 
seemingly lifeless object with its wings, legs, and antennae 
pasted down to its sides. In about two weeks there comes 
from this quiet brown object a perfect insect with broad 
scaly wings, usually of .some somber gray or brown color, 
in other words a common moth or miller, such as fly into 
the houses attracted by the light at nights. When their 
wings are expanded they measure about one and a half 
inches across ; they are familiar objects to everyone. These 
moths soon begin laying eggs about in the grass, weeds, 
bushes, etc. From these tiny eggs, not so large as a pin’s 
head (one moth will lay two or three hundred), there soon 
hatch the little worms which are destined to destroy the 
buds on the peach trees the next spring. During the fill 
the little worms feed probably on the roots of the grass, 
weeds, etc., becoming about half grown when winter sets 
in. They then go into hibernation in the soil and eat noth¬ 
ing until spring opens. Is it any wonder they are hungry 
then and on hand when the buds begin to swell ? It is a 
peculiarity in the habits of all cut-worms that they feed 
only at night, retiring into the ground during the day. 
Thus the worms that appear in the buds in the spring were 
born the preceding year, and when they get full grown in 
the summer they undergo the same transformation as did 
their fathers, mothers, etc., before them. From this we see 
that there is only one brood of the worms a year, although 
the life time of each worm extends into two calendar years. 
When the adult insects, the moths, began to emerge in 
our breeding cages in July last year we soon found that we 
had to deal with two different species, first cousins however, 
and bearing names which would discourage one to pro¬ 
nounce, so they will not be introduced here. 
As mentioned above, we tried no remedial measure 
against these mysterious pests last year. But this spring 
we determined to be on hand when the worms appeared. I 
very much desired to visit the scene of their depredations, 
and on April 26, when I received an urgent request to 
in.spect D. K. Bell’s beautiful pear orchard in West Brighton, 
I determined to visit Forest Lawn, where these pests have 
killed hundreds of young, recently-set peach trees and grape 
vines. What would our grandfathers have thought of a 
fruit grower who was willing to go to considerable expense 
to have a “ bug doctor ” come and inspect his orchards and 
prescribe with what and when he shall spray them ? 
Friday night at 8.15 p. m. I reached Forest Lawn and 
soon found Mr. Glasser, who at once took me into his 
peach orchard where the worms were then at work ; for 
everyone of his 800 trees had a wide funnel-shaped band 
of cotton around it, and he said that not more than one per 
cent, of the worms ever got above the cotton. So that the 
worms were then wandering up and down the trunk of the 
tree below the batting. But there were hundreds of the 
worms ; every tree had its quota. Sometimes fifty worms 
have been found on a single young tree. Arrangements 
were made to have as many worms collected from the trees 
that night as could be found, for me to take home and 
experiment upon. Over two hundred were secured before 
midnight, put in an ordinary wooden box, w'ithout food. 
