Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-04
Sure Remedy for Fruit Tree Borers.

One of the greatest troubles that the
orchardist has to contend against lies in
the ravages of fruit tree borers'. They
arc legless grubs that bore into his trees
commonly about the earth line, sapping
the very life of the growth, causing the
tree to lose its vigor, dwindles along for
a time and finally to wind up IT'S career in
premature death. There are three spe-
cies of borer infesting our orchard trees.
The core fruits, as apple and pear, have
two of them, popularity known as the
"flat-headed borer'' and the Ground
headed borer - Each of these borers
is the grub or larva of q small beetle,
which flies at night, and therefore is not
often seen. The parent of the fiat
headed borer deposits eggs on the
bark of the tree near the earth line.
IN spring which soon hatch out minute
grubs. The little grubs fall at once to
eating their way through the bark to-
warks the wood of the tree. When they
have reached the soft sapwood they
change their course, cutting along be-
tween the wood and the bark, about
half their tunnel being in the wood and
half in the bark. Here they grow rap
idly until they have attained to some
thing near three-fourths of an inch in
length and more than one-sixteenth of
an inch in breadth at the head, which is
much the broadcast part of the insect.
They remain in the tree one year, cutting
about under the bark and often almost
completely girdling it. Early in the
next spring they undergo their transfor-
nations and come forth perfect beetles
ready to start new generation of fiat
headed borers.
!. nv.
same way and at about the same time,
but when it gets through the bark of the
tree it changes the regular programme
by cutting directly for the heart wood.
Here it remains, boring it's way in va
rious directions through the wood for
three years, when, in the third spring, it
undergoes its transformation, and comes
out perfect beetle.
This borer attains to a larger size than
does the other, though, unlike the other,
its head is round and not much larger in
diameter than its body. OF the two
borers named, 1t Is the worst and most
destructive on account of cutting so deep
through the wood and remaining so long
in the tree.
The third borer infests only trees of
the stone fruits, as the peach, plum,
cherry and so on. 1t is the larva of
small moth or miller. In general ap-
pearance It q good deal resembles the
flat-headed borer of the apple. 1t con-
fines its work to the bark and sap-wood-,
and lives in the tree one year, invariably
inf1leting serious damage. The eggs of
the miller are usually deposited about at
the earth line, though occasionally it
places them at the larger forks of the
tree, something the apple tree borers
never do.
When these borers are already in the
tree the only remedy worth Tesorting to
is to locate them and gouge them out
with some sharp implement. Their
whereabouts can usually be ascertained
by the whittlings thrown out at their
holes in trees of the core fruits, and by
gum exuding from their holes in the
stone fruits In looking for them it is
best to remove the earth down a few
inches around the collar of the tree, as
they may be little below the earth-line.
Don't be afraid to cut IN for them. 1t
may look like seriously injuring the
tree, but the cut eaunot possibly do so
much harm as the borer would do.
Several preventives have been recon-
mended. At the North it is q common
practice to have the dirt away from the
collar of the tree in the winter to let the
boress freeze out, and to bank it high
around the tree in early spring to pre-
vent the parent insect from getting at
the regular earth line. In our warmer
climate that plan does no kind of good,
though our people may often be found
to 1t. Another preventive is to
smear the collars and crotohes of the
trees early in the spring with soft soap
little carbolic acid is
mixed into the soap. This is supposed
to put the surface of the tree in condi-
ton unfit for receiving the eggs of the
insects 1t is worth something but can
NOT be trusted as entirely effsctusl, az
the insects usually ind soapless space in
some crevice,. or where bit OF bark has
been knocked off, sufficient to answer
their purpose.
There is, however, preventive that
We consider everything that is needed.
1t is discovery of our own. and there
fore is not covered by letters patent, and
never viii be. After three years of care
full test, on q pretty large scale, we
have met with not single failure; or IN
other words, no tree to which we have
applied our preventive has vet shown in
it so much as one borer, Having arrived
at a full conviction OF its entire efficiency