Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — The Canker-Worm. [ARTICLE]

The Canker-Worm.

Oh the 25th day of May last I published a letter ia the CUioago Keening Journal giving the habits of the canket- • worm and showing how it can be exterminated. I now have the satisfaction of knowing that in very many cases the remedy I recommended was used and thousands of apple-trees that were already oovered with the small worms were saved. Thoir foliage was left uninjured and the trees matured a good crop of fruit, wh(L‘ orchards in the same viemity similarly affected which were not so treated soon looked as though fire had swept through them, the trees as imuv cent of green leaves as in midwiater. The object of this letter is, If possible, to convince the public that this remedy is practical, etiectual and safe, and that with very little effort this “ pest of the orchard" may be blotted out. I quo'e so much of my former letter as is essential in this connection: “ The female canker-worm rises out of the ground in the spring as soion as the frost is out and crawls up the trunk of the tree (as she is wingless) and deposits her eggs under old bark or in rough places, which hatch in May or the fore r>art of June into small looping caterpillars or so-called measuring worms, w hich soon spread over the trees, destroying the foliage, “ Many plans have been tried to prevent the worm from crawling up the “Wee, and with some success. —Bu4-4o- * wipe them out* completely, so that there shall not be one of them left to tell the talc, is by the use of Paris-green in water, applied with a large syringe or hand force-pump, a tablesroonful of Paris green to a patent pailful of water. II When the worms are all hatched, as near as can be judged, give the trees a good wetting-down, and if afterward it is discovered that they were not all killed pul on more; but usually one wetting will answer. “ This liquid w ill not only destroy the canker-worm, but the myriads of insects too small to be seen by the naked eye that are preying upon the foliage of trees. One party says that after using it last year in his orchard the foliage made such luxuriant growth and was so dark a green that it was almost black, which accounts for the fact that apples grown on trees on which these worms have been killed arc almost perfect, larger and fairer than on other trees. 1_ “It can be used just as safely m the flower-garden, destroying the ' insects that infest the shrubbery, as in the orchard." - . Granville Herring, Esq., of this city, whose farm is in the town of Durand, in this county, where he formerly resided, prepared himself last spring for a vigorous warfare upon these worms, and did fine execution. lie constructed a tank holding, he thinks, not tar from four barrels. It was tour feet long, three feet high, and wide enough to just fit into his lum-ber-wagon box. The top plauks extended two feet further than the tank, in front as well as back, for a platform . upon w hick he could stand, In this tank he put an ordinary force-pump, to which he attached a few feet of rubber hose with a sprinkler. The sprinkler has about fifty one-eighth inch holes, which, Mr. Herring says, should not be more than one half the size. He then filled the tank with liquid Paris-green, which he was careful to strain through fine wire cloth, and to keep well stirred to prevent its settling. .Alter killing the worms in his own orchard he did the same for several of his neighbors, among whom was David Campbell, Esq. Mr. Campbell’s orchard was visited the year before by such vast numbers that wheu they had stripped the apple-trees they covered his house and barn outside and in; but, finding nothing to eat, they soon disappeared. His trees this year were all saved with the exception of a few that were stripped of their foliage before Mr. H. was called. Mr. Campbell says Mr. Herring saved him three hundred* bushels of apples. Mr. Severance, whose place is six miles north nt this • ity, on the river road, has forty acres of orchard. He had never seen a canker-worm in it until last spring; he then discovered that they had fairly covered about 250 of the trees. With *« barrel of water, a patent pail, plenty- of Paris green and a hand force-pump, all in a lumber wagon, he started for the orchard He prepared his liquid, a pailful at a time; he then fixed his forcepump by screwing on the nozzle a piece in which there are two holes for the water, throwing two streams together, breaking them into fine mist. Mr. Sew erance says that the faster he pumps the finer is the mist; that the water can be ! thrown w ith such force that he can fairly j cover a tree from one standpoint, and ; only waste a trifle of the liquid; that one pailful is sufficient for about two trees of the ordinary size in our oldest •orchards; that the Paris green will settle to the bottom, making it necessary to' stir it frequently, which he did by turning the nozzle of the pump into the pail, when with two or three strokes of the pump it is thoroughlr agitated; that the loree-pump is valuable for various uses, so that it costs him but very little for his outfit. He was but half a day in sprinkling the 250 trees, and once sprinkling killed every worm. The Western Rural objects to the use of Paris-green for killing canker worms; thinks there is ‘-dangerof its collecting and remaining in the deep cavity about the stem of i tie apple.” The Rural overlooks the fat t that at the time the Parisgreen is applied, the apple has but just formed and h.;s no cavity about the stem; and further that the rains will have washed all tl. poison from the apple long before it has reached maturity. The Rural also thinks ttist the old way of “incasing the trunk of the tree with tarred bands or receptacles filled with some viscous fluid to prevent the female canker-worm from crawling up the trunk of the tree to deposit her eggs is the better way.” The cankerworm forms a small silken cord upon which it lets itsdlf down to the ground, particularly if the tree is jarred- ":i" "T" • Mr. Herring says that when the worms are small and are down on these little cords, the cords are frequently detached from the tree by the action of the wind, and the worm goes floating in the air; and if they are carried to another orchard they are ready to commence depredations at once: that he has in many cases seen them floating across the open fields. ''This being a fact, of what avail would be the breastwork of tarred bands or troughs of oil? Very strong objections were made by some people to using Paris-green to kill the Colorado potato- beetle, but those prej- j udices seem to have been conquered: for tons of it are now sold for that purpose. Now, reader.if these worms were in j

your orchard last spring, however few you may be sure that next soring they will be there In full force. Then, we say, prepare yourself to fight them; and. when you have met and conquered them, as conquer you must, you will have contributed your mite toward exterminating the greatest enemy of the orchard. — S. F. Curtis , in Rockford (III) Register.