TO KEEP FOREST TENT CATERPILLARS FROM TREES.
BY WM. SAUNDERS, LONDON. From the Free Press.
The Forest Tent Caterpillar (clissiocampa sylvatica), which was so very destructive to our gardens, orchards, and forests last year, seems likely to be almost as numerous and injurious again this season. The worms are now about an inch or more in length, and during the next ten days or fortnight will eat most voraciously, and their efforts, owing to their increased size, will be painfully apparent. There are many painstaking cultivators who are attentive to their trees, and destroy from time to time all the caterpillars they can find on them, but who are perplexed and discouraged by the continued invasions they are subject to from the hosts of these hungry larvæ which swarm in neglected orchards and among the forests trees. This particular caterpillar is very fond of travelling, and its powers of locomotion are not to be despised, for in a few hours it can travel a very considerable distance, and, if it does not meet with suitable food, can maintain its activity on an empty stomach for several days. In consequence of this peculiarity, trees that are free from them to-day may be swarming to-morrow. To meet such cases I would suggest the following simple and inexpensive remedy, which has been tried and found to work admirably:—Take a roll of cotton batting, open it out and cut it into strips about three inches wide, and tie one of these strips tightly about the middle to any part of the trunk of the tree, so as to completely encircle it. In attempting to cross this barrier, the multitude of minute, horny hooks which fringe the extremities of the thick, fleshy feet of the caterpillar become so entangled among the fibres of the cotton that further progress is impossible, and the hungry worm wishing to ascend, will be found walking disconsolately around and around the tree, looking in vain for some way over the difficult pass. As they have no other means of getting into the tree than that of crawling up it, when once the trees are cleaned, this harmless remedy is most effectual in keeping them so, and its use will result in a great saving of time and labor; even heavy rains do not impair the efficiency of this barrier.
When large trees are swarming with the caterpillars, as is the case in many orchards, such trees should be visited every morning, and the larvæ, which are then congregated in masses on the trunks, destroyed, which may be readily done by the vigorous use of a common broom.
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