. Manual of fruit insects. ts of the United States. The buds and leavesof grapevines are also favorite delicacies for them. Youngapple, pear and cherry trees, or blackberry, raspberry andcurrant bushes, or young shade trees and shrubs grown in suchsoils are also often attacked. The half or two-thirds growncutworms, hungry after a long winters fast in the ground,emerge early in the spring as soon as the buds begin to thieves in the night, they crawl up the trees, vines or bushesand from about 8 until nearly morning continue theirdestructive work of eating the buds. In some instan
. Manual of fruit insects. ts of the United States. The buds and leavesof grapevines are also favorite delicacies for them. Youngapple, pear and cherry trees, or blackberry, raspberry andcurrant bushes, or young shade trees and shrubs grown in suchsoils are also often attacked. The half or two-thirds growncutworms, hungry after a long winters fast in the ground,emerge early in the spring as soon as the buds begin to thieves in the night, they crawl up the trees, vines or bushesand from about 8 until nearly morning continue theirdestructive work of eating the buds. In some instances theculprits have been first discovered on still nights by hearingthe noise made by the clicking of the hundreds of tiny, hungryjaws as they devoured the buds. Fifty cutworms have beenfound at one time on a tree set the previous year; from 500 to800 have been counted going up the trunk of a 12-year oldapple tree in a single night; and 1500 have been taken fromsuch trees during the 2 or 3 weeks they work in spring. Young. f 140 FRUIT INSECTS trees and grapevines are often stripped of buds and killed in asingle night, and the cutworms sometimes gnaw off the tender bark of the twigs,or may even girdlethe trunk if pre-vented from ascend-ing by some morningthey drop to theground, burrow inan inch or more, andremain during the Fig. 152. — Moth of Porosagrotis vetusta (x If). , tt n • <-» day. Usually m 2or 3 weeks, or by the time the trees are in leaf and blossom,the cutworms become full-grown, cease feeding and soon trans-form to the parent moths (Fig. 152). Remedial measures. Orchards or vineyards on the heavier soils are rarely troubledby climbing cutworms. On the light, sandy soils usually pre-ferred by these pests, keep the ground entirely free from allgrass and weeds for 2 or 3 months after July 15, so as to starveout the recently hatched caterpillars. If some cover crop,like rye, oats, clover, rape or cow-peas, could be sown late infall between the r
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