The Portland daily press., 1895-07-01
THE ELM TREE BUG.
A Most PerniciOus Pest is ON Port
land Shade Trees.

of the Bug.
There are now appearing on the elm
trees in Portland and vicinity certain
bugs which have in them the unhappy
promise of devastating the foliage and
even of killing completely the noblest oi
our shade trees.
This enemy of the elm, as it is appear
ing now, is small bug, or slug, which
resembles much a Young potato bug The
bug has large body of dark amber
color, with small head of color nearly,
or quite black. Its legs, six in number,
are black. Its shape is almost identically
that of the potato bug. At present the
bug is about sixteenth of an inch long,
but it has not been Matched much more
than a week. 1t will grow much larger
as it feeds upon the tender parts of the
elm leaf Every few days it bursts its
skin, to take on additional size.
- Its method of eating is peculiar The
r slug only skins off the green of the leaf,
working on the under side leaving the
brown net work.
After the leaf is stripped of the green
cellular tissue it becomes quite dry
withers up and falls from the tree
The slug is Matched from an egg laid by
Ia winged beetle. This beetle, which
operates and moves about much as does
the potato bug beetle, is much more
active, however. They are rarely caught,
{ flying at the least alarm. They are much
smaller than the potato beetle, being
about an eighth of an inch long and quite
~slender in body. They resemble more the
ordinary squash bug, only the coloring i S
not SO brilliant. The wing covers are
marked by longitudinal brown and pals
yellow stripes. While the beetle is laying
its eggs it eats numerous small hollis in
the elm leaf.
The beetle lays the eggs about the
middle of May or first Of June The eggs
are laid on the under side of the leaf.
They are pale yellow in color, about the
size of mustard seed, and are laid on
end in two parallel rows. The rows are
close together and from three eighths of
an inch to a half an inch long. The eggs
hatch in two or three weeks, producing
the small slug,
The slugs feed on the tree until they
get their growth, which is usually the
last of August or the first of September
Then they leave the leaves and crawl
along the branches to the trunk. There
some of them secrete themselves in the
bark; but most of them proceed to the
ground They then lie On the surface of
the ground, around the trunk of the tree,
until they go into condition where they
resemble much kernel of barley, their
legs and head having disappeared, and
black spots having appeared upon the
amber color of the body.
These bodies lie there until the perfect
beetles appear from them. This beetle
does nothing more during the season ; but
is ready in the spring to lay the eggs
This is the story of the career of pest
which has in it the possibilities of much
trouble and destruction.
A gentleman from Connecticut, who is
in the city, and who discovered the bugs
on some of our elms, yesterday, says they
have been operating in that state two or
three years at least, and have caused
much alarm. On Glen Island, in the New
York portion of Long Island Sound, the
foliage of the fine elms of that summer
resort, was entirely brown by the last of
August last year. In New Haven last
year the trees were attacked badly, some
of the fine old elms of Yale college,
suffering severely. Where the bugs have
full swing they ruin the foliage entirely,
and often kill the trees. Some of the
finest elms in Norwalk, Conn, have been
killed entirely, so that they have had to
be cut down. The pest is general in
Western Connecticut at least, and the
people seem to regard it as a foregone
conclusion that the elm trees must 90.
In some places an effort is made to
fight the pests They can be attacked in
three stages When the beetle first ap-
pears the trees may, by the aid of hose
and force pump, be sprayed with solu-
tion of Paris green or London purple,
just as potato tops are treated If this is
carefully done. very few eggs will be laid
but it is rather difficult to spray large
elm. Still it is often done by
people who are anxious to preserve fine
shade trees. If sprayed once before the
egg is laid and once again after the eggs
hatch, the bugs are generally worsted for
the season.
The last, and easiest way of combating
the pest is in the fall, when they have
crawled down and dropped on the ground
at the foot of the trees The bodies are
found then by the quart, and may be
crushed or killed with boiling water.
The bug is said to be an importation
from foreign shores. One of the professors
of the Connecticut state experiment
station has studied it's habits, and has
described the best means of:combatting it.
There is one other method practiced
somewhat; but it is of doubtful value.
There are persons who travel about Con-
necticut claiming that by system of in
incubation they can render the elm proof
against its foes They bore hole into
the trunk and inject bitter fluid, the
composition of which is secret, and which
they claim goes into the circulation of
the sap and makes the leaf distasteful to
= II.