The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-03-22
AGRICULTURAL.
The Work of a Worm.

OOu'iuR mum lhlOIeStS lIulI growers W
the extent of running one-fourth to
one-half of the apple crop each year, it
would be thought that good many
pages would have been written about
the pest. But ii seems that the latest
and best works on it is bulletin of the
Cornell Station Q42), containing 20
pages with 1S illustrations. As this
vile worm interests almost everybody,
for everybody either grows or eats
apples, we will lay before our readers
some of the facts brought out in this
bulletin.
The question has often been dis
cussed, How should the name be
spelled2 While often written "codlin"
that spells another word; the g should
always be added. AS it was named
"codling moth" in 1747, from a cooling
tree, kind of apple tree, it would
seem inappropriate to give it differ
ent name.
The eggs are laid usually Jon the
leaves close to the apples or on the APP
pies themselves, but not on the calyx
as has been generally supposed. The
eggs are laid the last part of May or the
first half of June when the petals of
the blossoms have fallen off from most
varieties of apples. A moth lays about
100 eggs, but many of these may be
sterile. Sometimes several eggs are
laid on the same apple. 1t takes the
eggs about week to hatch. The
worm eats Its way out of the egg shell,
and then eats whatever comes handy
for few days If the egg was laid on
leaf, it eats from that or ii 1t energies
upon the skin of an apple, it takes
few meals on the skin wherever it hap
pens to find itself But its home is in
the core of the apple, its choicest food
is the apple seeds, and so it tunnels its
way thither as soon as it conveniently
can. Right here between the time the
worm matches and the time it gets well
at work on its way to the apple core is
the most vulnerable point in its life.
For short time the worm must get its
food on the surface of the apple, and
here poison can be deposited to kill the
worm. And now there comes to light
another fact. For few days after the
blossoms fall the calyx remains open,
then the leaves of the calyx close to-
DpthQr tharaFora he
sprayed with paris green just after the |
blossoms fall, little of the poison will
lodge in the calyx or blossom end of |
the little apple, and this will be cover
ed up by the closing or folding over of
the leaves of the calyx. But the worm
generally enters the apple at this very
point, and 80 is very sure to make
meal of the poison and thus be des-
troyed.
BY spraying with Paris green from
30 to even 80 per cent of the fruit that
would otherwise be ruined can be
saved with no great expense. But the
spraying must be done at the right
time, must be well done, or it will not
protect. God has opened this door of
hope to the orchardist, has caused the
worm to choose TO enter the apple at
the blossom end, has provided that the
calyx should remain open short time
after the blossom falls, thus giving an
to sprayIthe fruit and des-
troy the worm. 1t has taken man CEN
turtles to find this out, but now there is
no excuse for not protecting the or
chards and the apples from this pest. A
few late Matched broods may escape;
small number of the worms may eat
where there is no poison, rain may
come at the time to wash off the poison
before the calyx leaves close over it
to cover it, but these things do not pre-
vent the destruction of the worms by
careful sprayers.
Right here is great lesson to be
learned, not alone the lesson that the
cooling moth can be destroyed by
with Paris green just after the
apple blossoms fall, but the greater les
son that the man who takes pains, who
uses skill and thought, and he alone
will or can succeed. The orchardist
Who does not spray will lose one-half
10 three-fourths of his apple crop. The
one who sprays carelessly will save a
part OF his crop, but the one who does
The spraying well, will get the most of
his crop in good shape. 1t is a matter
Of brains, of the head rather than 1.-THE
1ands, of the thinking orchardst, rath-
'r than the careless farmer with a few
apple trees. Plainly it is getting to be
more and more the way that men of
good minds, men who can manage
heir affairs with good judgment, who
IRE prompt and energetic, who learn
uch facts as are contained in this arti-
lie and the bulletin referred to above.