Part 32 (2/2)

A. Chandler: I used a tree wash last year on apple trees for borers and insects. I have been troubled in my timber (recently cleared) land with borers, and if I had not taken this precaution they would have been worse. It is known as the ”Carnahan tree wash.” Obtaining it ready prepared in a can, I applied it in June with a whitewash brush to the tree trunks and a portion of the limbs, and found it very beneficial.

While it will not _destroy_ the borer, I think it will prevent the borer beetle from depositing eggs on the outside. From the healthy appearance of the tree and the smooth appearance of the bark, I think it equals anything I ever tried. It is also good for the prevention of other insects, as tree-crickets, etc., and I think it will destroy the curculio to some extent, and will prevent insects climbing the trees. My trees never looked more thrifty. I cannot say it will prevent root-rot.

F. Holsinger: I would like to inquire whether your ground was thoroughly cultivated?

A. Chandler: All the cultivation I could give would not prevent borers.

I applied the wash from the ground up, as far as I could reach. It costs about two cents per tree from four to six years old, and I do not know but what that might be reduced. This wash is obtained in gallon and half-gallon cans. It should be applied about twice a year--spring and fall--costing about four cents per year for each tree.

T. A. Stanley: Would not a strong lime wash do as well.

A. Chandler: No; I have no success with it. If the borer is in the tree, you must dig him out with a knife. By examination you can tell whether borers have deposited eggs or not. I do not say it will rid the tree of borers if they have been allowed to deposit eggs and are left for years.

It makes the tree grow more vigorous. I do not know what is in this tree wash, but it did no damage.

B. F. Smith: Chandler has tried this wash, and it has proven successful with him. There are always new things being tried. If he has found something good for trees, we should not object to it. If I receive a package I will try it.

T. A. Stanley: My experience with borers will date back as far as fifty years ago, when I was a boy, and the best thing to exterminate them with was a jack-knife. A Boston gentleman visiting my father went into the orchard and asked father if he had ever seen any borers. Father told him he knew nothing about them (they were something new in those days).

Examining a tree, he took out his jack-knife and went to work near the ground, and he soon showed why the tree was not doing well. With his knife he dug the borer out and said the jack-knife was the best exterminator he knew of. My experience is, if you will attend to it about the 1st of June, when the beetles come out on the tree and deposit their eggs behind loose scales of bark, and wash the tree with strong lime wash, it will kill them. I prefer lime wash to any ”nostrum” ever introduced. When they once get into the tree no wash will take them out.

Horticulturists have been deceived enough by patent nostrums.

E. J. Holman: By instinct this insect never lays its eggs on the surface. It lays as completely in the wood as the locust, which punctures almost to the heart of a twig. A borer lives three years in the wood; the third year it comes out in perfect form. It goes below in the wood every winter, and the third spring pa.s.ses the coc.o.o.n stage there. They lay about fifty eggs, each placed separate and apart in the wood. Rarely does an egg fail to hatch.

J. W. Robison: These beetles are very fierce. Put a half dozen into a bottle and they will beat a bull fight, and will not stop until they kill each other. She is a philosopher; she makes punctures sideways, so the eggs can be laid in a row, and the bark close over them. It is only a few days until they hatch; open the lip where deposited and you can see them plainly. Without cutting the bark, thrust your knife under the lip and you can hear the eggs crack. The larva works round and round until of the size of a pea, and then usually starts upward until he gets level with the surface of the ground, staying there until the next season. He comes up early in the spring. My practice is to hoe around the tree before the time for the round-headed borer to deposit eggs. I keep the weeds clear, so that I can see where the borer went in. If he has been in a year or two he is near the middle, and you had better let him alone, as it will injure the tree to remove him. It is impossible to get rid of these borers by a wash, because the eggs are covered. There is no connection between the round-headed and flat-headed borers.

T. A. Stanley: It requires three years for the borer to mature and come out. In my experience, the borer selects a spot where loose bark is on the tree, and goes in where it is tender. It lays eggs in even rows.

These eggs stay under the bark but a short time when they hatch and the little worm eats into the tender bark, and goes through it, to live and grow there; when large enough they go into the body of the tree. They stay there for three years. Sc.r.a.pe off the bark and put whitewash on the eggs and it will destroy them.

President Wellhouse: By taking a knife, cutting into the tree, and running a hooked wire in, you can pull them out. Each female beetle deposits fifty or sixty eggs, and we find it better and less expensive to hunt the borers early in the spring. By carefully examining the bottom of the tree for six or eight inches above the ground you will see a little brown spot. He came to the bark the fall previous, and sets about two inches back in his cavity. If you wait till May, he is out and gone; he is easier taken out in spring than later. By killing the insect you prevent the egg laying. We always have our men hunt for the insects that are about to come out. It is easy to find the little brown spot about the size of your finger end, and you can kill them by pouring a few drops of coal-oil from a machine can into the cavity.

Dr. J. Stayman: Can we prevent the borer from entering the tree? I have practiced banking up my trees as steep as I can, about a foot high; less may do. The beetle will not deposit eggs where the tree is banked up. I have practiced this for thirty years, and have never seen a borer in my trees since I began it. Like these gentlemen, I at first cut out the borers. We can prevent them by banking up early in the spring. By instinct, it knows the bank will wash down. If it deposits its eggs, how easy to sc.r.a.pe away the mound. I never saw a flathead borer on a tree that was banked. They always work on the south side, where the sun s.h.i.+nes on the tree.

BUD MOTH.

This insect is often very destructive, attacking the blossom and leaf-buds, and in a few mouthfuls destroying that which must make the leaves and fruit, ”nipping in the bud” the entire crop of fruit and debilitating the tree. This worm works in early spring, as soon as the buds begin to open; it delights in the prominent terminal buds and its work stops all new growth, causes many leaves to turn brown, and thus brings to the notice of the orchardist its bad work. The moth measures about three-quarters of an inch across its wings, and is mainly a gray color, the middle of the fore wings being lighter, or creamy. This insect first appears on the buds as a small, dark brown worm, about one-fourth of an inch long, with s.h.i.+ning black head and shoulders. It imbeds itself in the center of the bud, tying the leaves together with its web. It is an irregular worker, and leaves the bud in a ragged, brown, dilapidated condition.

Its work is most destructive in the nursery, destroying terminal shoots, which sadly interferes with the growth and symmetry of the young tree.

Sometimes it burrows from the bud into the pith of the twig for several inches, killing the shoot to the tip. The worm finally settles upon a leaf, cutting the leaf stalk partly off, so that the leaf withers; it then rolls this soft, wilted leaf into a tube around its body, fastening it with webs and lining it for a nest. From this tube nest it comes forth only at night to feed, and when disturbed it hastens into it out of sight. In feeding, it draws leaves towards its home by silken threads, thus forming a bunch of partly eaten leaves, which turn brown, making the nest conspicuous.

After attaining its growth it lies as a pupa in its silk-lined tube about ten days, when it emerges an adult moth, and in three or four days begins to lay its eggs. These moths appear from about June 1 and remain to July 5 or July 10. They are night flyers, and do no damage in the winged state. As the worms are leaf-eaters, spraying with London purple or Paris green, as for canker-worms, must kill many. Whenever their nests are seen they should, if possible, be gathered and burned, and in a badly infested orchard it will pay to rake and burn all the leaves under the trees.

APPLE CURCULIO.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15. _a_, Beetle, natural size; _b_, beetle, magnified; _c_, side and back view of same, magnified.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16. _a_, Pupa stage; _b_, larva, or worm. Hair-lines to the left of pupa show natural size.]

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