NTON GRAPE LEAF]

_Treatment._ Burn orchard trash which may serve as winter quarters.
Spraying with arsenate of lead, using two pounds of the mixture to fifty
gallons of water, is the only successful treatment for the curculio. For
plums and peaches, spray first when the fruit is free from the calyx
caps, or dried flower-buds. Repeat the spraying two weeks later. For
late peaches spray a third time two weeks after the second spraying.
This poisonous spray will kill the beetles while they are feeding or
cutting holes in which to lay their eggs.

[Illustration: FIG. 156. THE CANKERWORM]

Fowls in the orchard do good by capturing the larvae before they can
burrow, while hogs will destroy the fallen fruit before the larvae can
escape.

=The Grape Phylloxera.= The grape phylloxera is a serious pest. You have
no doubt seen its galls upon the grape leaf. These galls are caused by a
small louse, the phylloxera. Each gall contains a female, which soon
fills the gall with eggs. These hatch into more females, which emerge
and form new galls, and so the phylloxera spreads (see Fig. 155).

_Treatment._ The Clinton grape is most liable to injury from this pest.
Hence it is better to grow other more resistant kinds. Sometimes the
lice attack the roots of the grape vines. In many sections where
irrigation is practiced the grape rows are flooded when the lice are
thickest. The water drowns the lice and does no harm to the vines.

=The Cankerworm.= The cankerworm is the larva of a moth. Because of its
peculiar mode of crawling, by looping its body, it is often called the
looping worm or measuring worm (Fig. 157, _c_). These worms are such
greedy eaters that in a short time they can so cut the leaves of an
orchard as to give it a scorched appearance. Such an attack practically
destroys the crop and does lasting injury to the tree. The worms are
green or brown and are striped lengthwise. If the tree is jarred, the
worm has a peculiar habit of dropping toward the ground on a silken
thread of its own making (Fig. 156).

[Illustration: FIG. 157. THE SPRING CANKERWORM
_a_, egg mass; _b_, egg, magnified; _c_, larva; _d_, female moth; _e_,
male moth]

In early summer the larvae burrow within the earth and pupate there;
later they emerge as adults (Fig. 157, _d_ and _e_). You observe the
peculiar difference between the wingless female, _d_, and the winged
male, _e_. It is the habit of this wingless female to crawl up the trunk
of some n