The Codling Moth is likely to be, if it has not already become, the most formidable enemy the Western orchardist has to contend with. For several years past they have been largely on the increase in this region, and last year were particularly destructive. Some orchards have lost from fifty to seventy-five per cent. of the crop, and almost all from ten to thirty per cent. Various remedies have been tried with partial success. The bands of straw, tow, rags, or other material, have been found useful; the introduction of fowls into the orchard has checked them somewhat; the turning in of hogs and sheep, to consume the falling fruit, has been practiced with some success, and the frequent washing of the trees with lime, soapsuds, or other alkaline substances, has been beneficial. But, as a rule, they go on increasing. All do not fight them with like energy and skill. While one orchardist is energetically battling against their ravages, others of same neighborhood, are idly looking on. So that, even should some infallible remedy be found, we shall probably fall short of complete success, for want of the united effort of the whole people.

Yet there is reason for hope, that, like the army worm, the Colorado potato bug, the chinch bug, and other enemies, their irruptions will prove to be periodic, and that they will some of these days suddenly disappear. I am sometimes ready to conclude, that with all our theories, and after all that has been said and written in regard to insect life and depredations, our advance upon the enemy's lines has been slow. It is certainly true that the great mass of the people arc possessed of very limited knowledge in the matter; and what is more, are totally indifferent. Much of what we know, or think we know, is the merest guess work. The theory of to-day is frequently upset by the experiment or observation of to-morrow. Here and there is a man, or a woman, who, by patient labor and investigation, is acquiring that knowledge which is to benefit the race. All others are only lookers-on - most unheeding and many despising their labors.

This apple moth is not even known to very many of those who are sufferers from its ravages; and its "ways are dark" to many more. A neighbor, in speaking of them, stated that the larva will leave the apple, after packing in the barrel, and eat into and hide in the wood and under the hoops. I laughed at him - supposing that he was confounding this insect with the borers. But another neighbor showed me pieces of the scaly bark from an old apple tree, underneath which, entirely embedded, were numbers of these worms, whither they had sought protection for the winter. He also exhibited portions of pine board, split from a bin in his apple cellar, in which were numbers of them similarly imbedded.

These are new facts to me, I confess, in regard to the habits of these pests; and I give them because I presume there are other readers of the Horticulturist as ignorant concerning them as I am.