Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-14
FORT WORTH ON THE WAR PATH.


find thiczly hanging over my yard trees
little inverted-cone-shaped thing about
one inch in length. 1t seems to be a silky
cocoon, very hard to break, and its outer
surface is more or less covered with leaves
of the tree upon which 1 find it. My recol-
lection is that something about il was pub
lished in THE GAZETTE last summer, but
having had my files broken, l cannot refer
to what was said, and SO write to you for
additional information. OF course it is an
insect, ami appears to be dead, but will it
revive in spring and go to work anew on
my trees to their injury2 Please give me
particulars through the paper, and oblige
regular reader who never fails TO read and
admire the well-edited Agricultural Depart
ment of THE GAZETTE. a LADY.
Fort Worth, Tex.
It is the notorious basket worm, known
to science as Thyridopteryx ephemorefOr-
mis-, and it has secured such start in Fort
Worth that unless our citizens enter into a
concert of action looking to its extermina-
ton it will destroy all our shade aud yard
trees within about the next two years, with
the exception of a very few species. Among
these possibly-exempts species are the China
tree and the Ailanthus or tree of heaven"
and we are by no means sure that it will
not take to these when it has found "no
other worlds to conquer"
If you will take down lot Of the
''baskets" as now seen hanging upon your
trees and will cut them open, you will find
that at least half Of them are closely packed
with small cream-colored eggs. The baskets
containing the eggs were the females Of
last year, the empty baskets were the
males. The female never leaves the basket,
but literally turns into eggs. The males
were provided with wings, and so came out
late in the fall and flew about as a moth OF
miller, etc.
There is now but one practicable remedy
for US, and that consists in going up into
our trees, cutting off every basket to be
seen and burning it. Burning" is the
word, for it would DO no good to take OF
the baskets and throw them aside, for
those eggs would hatch out as well one
place as another, and most of the young
worms would somehow manage to get back
upon the trees. And right now is the time
to act. A little later and every egg in
those baskets will have hatched out a min
ute basket worm for the season of 1892, and
then it will be too late to do much against
them.
The basket worm appears to prefer the
cedar or arbor-7ite, or some other
growth among the narrow-leaf evergreens,
yet it will readily take to almost any char
acter of growth, not excepting our roses or
priyet hedges. On East Weatherford
street south side), between Jones and
Grove, is place with two very tall LON
hardy poplars in the yard, and those pop
lars are completely hung with the baskets
of these insects, from top to bottom. There
are enough baskets on those two trees 10
infest all the yard trees for blocks around
in the coming summer, and they viii do it,
unless destroyed before the eggs hatch.
Our people should promptly declare war
against the basket worm, and make it
duty to burn every basket coming under
their notice. It is matter of grave i'm
portance. Prompt action on cur part might
rapidly put an end to the pest, but unless
something of the kind is done Fort Worth
will soon find herself without yard or street
trees. Such thing has happened in other
cities, and the prospect for such happening
is as good here as it could possibly be, or
ever has been, in any ether locality.