Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1875 — Torches for the Codling Moth. [ARTICLE]

Torches for the Codling Moth.

Fob a number of years my attention ha* been called to the ravage* of the codling moth among our apples. So numerous and widespread have they become that wormy apples are now th* rule and sound ones the exception. Various remedies have been suggested and practiced, such as hay bands and woolen cloths around th* trees, cans of sweetened water suspended from the limbs of the trees, etc. The hay bands in most cases have proved a positive injury, as they or cloth would be put on and allowed to remain during the entire season, thus furnishing the best possible breeding-place for the worms. The can* catch some moths, but are not used by enough orchardists to hav* any appreciable effect on the number of sound apples. Those who have picked np their windfalls early in the season and fed them to hogs or cattle, also those who have let hogs or sheep run in their orchards, have succeeded in realizing a fair crop of reasonably sound apple*. But the number of persons who have their orchards in a shape to let the sheep and swine roam at will among them is comparatively small, principally because they have not a proper fence around their orchards.

Last March I moved into a house that had been used as a storehouse for apples the previous fall and winter. About the Ist to the 15th of April the moths (little brown fellows), about one-half of an inch long, became so numerous that they cov* ered the windows and at night flew into the chimneys of our lamps and around so as to be quite annoying. Acting on this hint I took a torch, made similar to torches used in torchlight processions, and placed it in my small orchard several nights just after the apples had set. The result was that I gathered a sounder lot of last fall than I had for a number of years. The coming season I am going to place torches at intervals of, say, six rods apart, over my orchard. I believe if this was generally practiced the coming season ra jvqiight get rid of this great enemy to the apple. I am aware that some savants claim that the codling moth is not attracted by a light. I know they are. Carbon oil has become so cheap that the cost of applying it as a remedy is very trifling.—<7. Jf. Root, in Prairie Farmer. —Newsgirls are more than a match for the newsboys in New York, and bid fair to crowd ths boys off the track.