Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 325]

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311 EILEY—It is native here, and does not spread in Europe. The common quail and the lady bird, and several ot its own order, prey on the Chinch Bug. The Horse Mantes is very ferocious, 1 think it must do much good for fruit-growers. I have heard your strawberries here were hurt by a grub. BRUNTON—The grub that has done damage here is the May Beetle. But there is another—a small black bug—that has been mischievous. EILEY—It injures plants by suction. It was more abundant than usual last year. Is there any trouble here from the apple tree borer ? I will send round its two parents. Its attacks may be prevented by four laths put around the young tree, or by soft soap applied early in May. The flat-headed borer is confined to the upper sunscalded or otherwise injured parts of the tree. It is prevented, also, by soap. I would examine the apple orchard every fall to be safe. Soap will not keep out the J>each borer. The moth don't seem to care much for it. Mounding the trees I presume is a good plan. No insect that I know of preys upon this borer. It lays its eggs in June, and perfects in one year. The curculio is said to have been less injurious the past year, at this place, than heretofore. The canker worm is found here a little. In the southern part of this State, a gentleman thought to stop the curculio by puttiDg a bandage of wool around each tree. So the city fathers of Baltimore had troughs made to put around trees to stop another insect that could fly. But the true canker worm can be prevented by bandages, and might have been prevented from coming here. The female is wingless, and so it spreads very slowly. They are easily killed. Scrape off the eggs and burn them. Troughs can be made around the trees. They must be tight, and kept on all the time of the insects. But bandages kept smeared with refuse sorghum are the best. Fall plowing is beneficial, at least in Southern Illinois. The chrysalis is in the ground all summer and late in the fall. Exposure by plowing lets other birds and insects to them. QUICK, of Irvington—The leaf roller is bad here in some places. How would you get rid of them ? EILEY—It is the rascal Leaf Crumpler. The perfect insect is a little gray moth. Go in winter and hand pick all the folded