THE CODLIN MOTH AND PARIS GREEN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2436, 21 February 1888, Page 2

THE CODLIN MOTH AND PARIS GREEN.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir,—During tho course of last week I visited seveial orchards in this neighbourhood where Paris green had been tried, and the contradictoryjrcsultsare not a little surprising. By invitation of the genial owner I visited the well-known orchard of Mr Bowman in Greenlane. Tile press has so often commented favourably on this line orchard that it is needless for me to say much descriptive of it. .Suffice to say, that it is owned and kept by an experienced and enthusiastic orcbardist, that it contains all the very best varieties, culled by experience to suit climate, locality and soil, so many varieties in fact, that, as the owner says, a ripe apple may be pulled at any time in it during six months of the year. It will be in the recollection of many readers of The Waikato Times, that to Mr Bowman belongs the houour of first provini,' the practicability of exporting fruit from New Zealand to England. Following that experiment our Australian cousins have already inaugurated a huge export fruit trade with immense possibilities. One incident of that memorable voyage I do not remember seeing in print. Mr Bowman tells me that ho took with him independent of the apples placed in the cool chamber, which were kept at oOdeg. a sack of loose apples for himself and friends to use on the voyage and they kept good until the English Channel, was reached. Reverting to the orchard, it consists, with the exception of a few plum trees, entirely of apples, and as the trees are of medium height, few exceeding twelve feet, and well kept, the best results from the use of Paris green could be attained, and so it has proved. Mr Bowman considers that the use of this insecticide has saved him this season over seventy-five per cent, of fruit He pointed out tree after tree, I may say row after row, laden with magnificent fruit, specimen fruit in fact, entirely free from the moth, where last season the fruit from the same trees was nearly worthless. On a few trees the mixture had proved too severe, and injured the foliage, though not to any. permanent extent. I was informed that some varieties are far more sensitive to the application than others, and only experiment and time will tell the quantity and strength to be used on different trees. Now and again a few trees were to be seen considerably affected with the moth, though nothing like so badly as I have seen elsewhere. These trees, the owner significantly said, had not had his own supervision. With such a splendid orchard at stake, Mr Bowman is very easy about the moth, and is quite satislied that with Paris green, and possibly the baud treatment added, lie will have little trouble with it. Ho regards the little beetle, the ladybird, as one of the very worst pests in an orchard, and no doubt the ravages of the beetle and the consequent defacement of the fruit must lie very trying to an orcbardist who ha 3 such line fruit. (Numbers of these beetles and also a small grey moth are to be trapped by the band treatment along witli the eodlin moth grub.) I may state that throughout this large orchard I saw none of the cotton blight, nor any shelter lor pests to breed in, everything being seupuloiisly clean. On the few •h'-eted trees I looked in vain to discover what I had note I on my own trees, viz., that the westerly side of the tree was almost free from (he moth, and the pest spread from the eastwaid, hence the inference that well exposed orchards to the westerly winds, and orchards on the west side of this island might, remain a long time clean. The Green Lane orchard did not hear out this theory, nor did others I afterwards saw ; yet there might be something in it, as the scope I went over was very limited. Though apart from the subject, I should like to mention three well known trees fruiting here well which should suit the semi-skilled grower, viz., the R/mianite, Nickajack, and Stuarts -eeuling. The latter is a beauty with the typical apple foliage, richer and glossier than Reinette du Canada, a good hearer, with fine fruit, and an introduction of Mr Bowman, who first fruited it. I may add that Mr Bowman deprecates much the lack of unanimity amongst fruit growers, and points out what great results would be obtained were they frequently to give each other the benefit of their experience in their own districts. Very much in contrast to the foregoing was an orchard I visited in Remnera. It was small in comparison to the one in Green Lane, and contained about a hundred young trees. These were well kept, and a little taller, though not so old as Mr Bowman's, and planted much the same as to distance, with the intervening ground cultivated (In Green Lane the orchard is in grass). The gardener though not a professional, was very shrewd, and I should say had quite average skid in tho treatment of trees. He hail twice used the Paris green, going strictly by book, with iiq visible result. In this orchard, situated on a hill, and well exposed to the west wind (though like many other orchards, tco largely sheltered by pines and macrocarpa,) the moth is playing great havoc. The band treatment had not been tried in it, the gardener was loud in the praise of Paris green as destructive for slugs aud other garden vermin and noted also the great effect it had on tiie larrakin orchard thief. It must be evident to anyone that Paris green cannot be an entire success, without the band treatment also, as the moth is a succession and propagates itself during tho greater part of the apple season. Those who use the bauds must use seald. ing water, as other pests are trapped as well as the apple worm, and there is no surety in destroying even it without the hot water. The worm appears to be of lazy habits and will crawl into any shelter (hence toe value of a clean ground) although its invariable instinct is to return to the tree. It will even ro-oocupy a, cocoon the moth has escaped from, as I have proved by expemf&nfc. With a cheap elastic band provided to clasp around the stem many thousand cloths could be attached by one man in a day, and oven with tying it is not a tcdiuus process to put on the bands. It is evident that whatever is decided upon to extirpate or mitigate the moth must be done by one and all who have fruit trees. This was repeatedly pointed out by The Waikato Times last season, and it would have been well that energctip, measures had then boon, tak-en. It- we can devise no practicable-means to extirpate it (I fancy our American friends would try if they had it in such a gmo,U area), unless it developes increased fecutjdity here, it will not prove a very serioii,a foe if one and all 4ght it with some trea> merit. At any rate a community who quietly consent to the importation of virulent microbes need not strain at a ' gnat and swallow a camel.—Yours truly, Walter Scott, Fillers) ie, February 13th.