The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-04-01
Orchard Problems
The Cooling Moth.

tTC SOdliIiS
Of all the insect pests with which
the fruit grower has to contend, the
codling moth is the most serious. No
insect or disease, either fungous or
bacterial, is anywhere comparable in
it's damages to this insect that pro-
duces wormy apples. Some OF our
careful men have gone so far as to
put forth the statement that the cod
ling moth causes more damage to
fruit growers than all other insects
combined Prof. c. L. Marlatt, Wash
ington, d. c., in charge of expert
mental field work, bureau of entomo-
logy, in his able article entitled, AN
nual Loss Occasioned by Insects in
the Yearbook of 1904, says: "The cod
ling moth probably causes greater
monetary loss than any of the other
enemies to fruits. Combining the d1-
rect shrinkage or loss and the cost
of protection from still greater loss
gives a total tax chargable to the cod
ling moth of nearly $20,000,O0O." This
is a serious matter. The cost of fight
ing this insect is put by Marlatt at
over $8,OOO,000 annually. Without the
spending of this amount in combat
ting this pest the loss would amount
to forty or fifty millions of dollars
every year.
This item of eight millions of dol
lars or more must be spent annually.
We cannot take rest. Enough OF the
larvae winter over after we have done
our best in fighting this insect to
practically ruin our crop OF apples
the following year. 1t is constant
fight but never fight to the finish"
1t is true that some inexperienced
persons talk about DISCRIMINATING"
the cooling moth and about cleaning
our orchards of this worst OF all
pests, but such statements only reveal
the ignorance of such persons, or, ii
they are not ignorant, then they pro-
claim themselves dishonest in pre-
tending that they can do what they
know cannot be done. The best we
can do is to curtail the ravages of
this pest and this must be done every
year. What the future has in store
for us in the way of remedial agen-
cies in controlling the codling moth
we know not, but as the matter
stands, there is no rest for us in the
fight with this insect.
Some years the cOdling moth is
worse than others and our losses are
greater. There are many reasons for
this variation. The damage to our
apple crop is much worse on some
varieties than on others. The Kings
and the PeWaukees are among those
that suffer the most. Why this differ
ence we do not know. Some locali-
ties are more favorable for the moths
to work than others. We know some
of the reasons for this difference.
The moth lays it's eggs only at night
but it will not fly if the temperature
is below 60. Where the nights are
uniformly cool there will be but little
damage from this pest and some Sec
lions are immune from it's attacks
on account of the uniformly cool
nights. In the warm valleys of the
Pacific coast, which are sheltered
from the cool sea breezes, this pest
does it's worst work. 1t is much worse
here than in the Atlantic and middle
states. Where we can raise the high
est grade of apples, both in color and
quality, this pest is most in evidence.
The only thing we can do in these
sections is to fight on and lose from
two to forty per cent. of our apples.
But as the apples from these sections
sell very much higher than those from