The Florida agriculturist., 1880-09-15
Honey Dew.
, Farmer and Fruit Grower

This is the name commonly given
to the sweet sticky substance often
seen Oh hickory and other leaves dur
ing hot, dry weather in summer.
Many people suppose this 10 be a
natural product deposited from the
atmosphere in some mysterious man.
ner, tor the especial benefit OF the
bees. 1t they happen to notice
plant lice on the same leaves the
natural inference is that they have
come to feed on the sweets so plenti-
fully spread before them. The fact
is, however, that these little fellows
are still more intimately connected
with this curious phenomenon.
The TODD OF all plant lice, and
there are a great many kinds OF them
consists entirely of the sap OF grow
ing plants. In order to obtain this,
they are provided with long sucking
tubes with which they pierce the
leaves or green bark. The sap CON
tinues to run from these punctures
for some time and. partially drying
on coming in contact with the air, it
collects in sticky drops ON the leaves.
In addition to the sap which flows
from the punctured leaves, the lice
themselves excrete at intervals
sweet honey like substance, which is
of course derived from the sap on
which they iced. This fact is we'll
known to the ants and they can al
most always be found running about
among the plant lice feeding eagerly
on this sweet secretion.
"Honey dew" then is simply the
partially dried sap of the plant on
which it is seen, part OF it having
passed through the bodies OF plant
lice and part oozed from the pune.
lures made by them in the leaves.
Whenever seen it is sure indication
Of the presence Of these little pests,
and when abandant must cause
heavy drain on the resources OF the
tree and prove quite detrimental to
its growth.
1t is during dry seasons that trees
suffer most from this cause, as heavy
rains wash off the lice and the trees
beng supplied with plenty of mois-
ture are better able TO stand the loss
of sap.
During some of our dry summers
the pear orchards OF this country
have been a good deal damaged il
this way. Some varieties seem par>
ticularly liable to attack. l have
seen Duchess and Lawrence trees 50
covered with "honey dew" that one
could not pass through the orchard
without being daubed from head to
foot with the sticky stuff And the
several, yellowish, discolored leaves
and general starved look OF the trees
showed at a glance how much they
had suffered. l do not know that
any remedies have been tried, but
doubtless some application might be
made that would at least discourage
the lice.
The long dry summers OF Calitor.
MIA seem TO be particularly favorable
to plant lice and, as consequence,
honey dew is very common. APP
Piles and plums seem TO be more
troubled than other fruit trees there.
At the fruit farm of Mr. Rhoda, near
Oakland, | saw plum trees with their
leaves fairly loaded down. with plant
lice and distorted by their numerous
punctures. In some cases the lice
were two and three deep all over the
under side OF the leaf. Strange 10
say, in spite OF all this the trees were
pretty well filed with nice looking
fruit. III. that peculiar climate and
with their rich soil it seems hard to
discourage tree. 1t anything
checks its growth tor Time 1t SIM |