They live in this way four or five weeks, becoming, when full grown, about two inches long and nearly as large as a lead-pencil. See [fig. 8]. They are black, with light-colored tufts of hair on the back. Down the center of the back is a white line bordered with irregular yellowish lines. The sides of the body are marked with pale blue, while the under side of the worm is black. When grown they pass to the ground and hunt a sheltered place, where they spin a cocoon, from which, in about three weeks, emerges the adult moth, [fig. 6], the color of which varies from yellowish to reddish brown. The front wings each contain two oblique, whitish lines, dividing the wing into three nearly equal parts. These moths are night flyers during the last half of June and first half of July. They eat nothing. The female lays her eggs as described, and dies.
Remedies. Spare the birds; put up boxes for the bats and owls. Cut off the egg clusters during the winter. Cut and burn the tents, or burn the tents on the tree, with any kind of a torch. Early morning or late evening is the time, as they are then all home. Spray the foliage nearest the tents with solutions for canker-worm.
CODLING-MOTH.
The apple-worm, which every apple eater has found many times in the apple, is the child of the codling-moth. See b, [fig. 9]. It is a scourge all over the apple-growing district. It destroys or reduces the value of the apple crop many millions of dollars annually.
The parent—adult insect, or moth—see a, [fig. 9], is a small moth with a spread of wings three-fourths of an inch, the first pair marked with wavy lines of gray and brown, with a large, oval brown spot, streaked coppery, on hinder margin. The hind wings are yellowish brown. These moths appear, and begin to lay on the surface of the leaves, in the calyx, or on the surface of the apple, about the 1st of May. The eggs hatch in about one week, and the young worm immediately begins to burrow into the apple, working its way to the center, where it works around the core, gaining strength and size for about three weeks, when it leaves the apple and seeks a hiding place in which to spin its cocoon, the favorite place being under projections of the rough bark of the tree. When first hatched these worms are small, hardly one-eighth of an inch long, white, with a black head and shoulders. When mature, the body is pinkish and the head and shoulders brown. The adult, a, [fig. 9], issues from the cocoon in about two weeks, appearing near June 15. They commence at once to lay eggs. The worms of this, the second brood, live in the apple all winter, and it is these that disgust the apple eater and cut the profits of the orchardist.
Remedies. The same spray as for canker-worms, used just after the petals of the blossom fall. No eggs are deposited earlier than this. At this time the calyx cup is open, and a little poison in it is apt to prove fatal to the infant worm. In a few days after the egg is laid the calyx closes, and no spray will reach the worm. Remember, this early spraying does away with the parents of the second brood, and hence should not be neglected. Bands of burlaps, paper or other material, loosely tied about the tree before June 1, make attractive places for the worms to pupate in. These bands should be examined often, say weekly, and all worms killed. Fallen fruit should be gathered and fed to stock. Cellars, caves and fruit houses should be thoroughly cleaned and fumigated and the cleanings burned every spring, as many thousands of moths are wintered over in them.