Codlin-Moth

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

the well known pest of the fruit grower. The adult is a beautiful little moth, with finely mottled gray, or rosy, front wings. The ends of the fore wings are marked by a brownish spot crossed by small, irregular golden bands. The moth lives in the pupa stage over winter. It emerges in late spring and lays its eggs in apple blossoms, just as the petals are about to fall. As soon as the eggs have hatched, the larvae begin to burrow into the young apple. The "worms" live in the core of the apple and cause the fruit to wither and fall. When full grown, the larvae eat their way out through the side of the fruit. They then spin their cocoons in some sheltered place and remain dormant over winter. The codlin-moth is the worst enemy of the orchard. It has to be fought by spraying the trees with a copious shower of Paris green water as soon as possible after the petals fall. Particles of Paris green, lodging in the calyx, are eaten by the young larvae. "The falling spray," says Comstock, "lodges in the blossom end of the young apple, and the larva which hatches from an egg laid in this position gets a dose of poison with its first meal, and dies before it can eat its way into the apple." One authority says that $8,000,000 a year are spent in spraying American apple orchards to prevent the ravages of the codlin-moth. See Cotton Boll-Weevil ; Colorado Potato Beetle ; Scale Insects