Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1869 — Plugging the Holes of Apple Tree Borers. [ARTICLE]

Plugging the Holes of Apple Tree Borers.

A correspondent of the New England Farmer relates the experience of a neighbor in destroying apple tree borers by plugging up their holes they make in the tree. He says that his friend while making an examination this spring of one of his trees, found several holes with signs of borers at work. He soon found it too much of a job. to follow them with wire or chisel; so he dug around the foots, scraped off the rough bark from the roots and trunk, and found all the holes. Then he took common putty and plugged them all up perfectly tight. On the third day after doing this he visited the tree, and on removing the putty found, to his surprise, four borers dead, all of which came out with -the plugging. By this process he destroyed the borers without cutting the roots : qr trunk of the tree, which is as injurious as the work of the borer, as I have often found it necessary to cut quite deep in order to reach the rascals. From the irregularity of the direction of course, I have also found much difficulty in fishing them out with a barbed wire.