MILLIONS OF CATERPILLARS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 21 July 1923, Page 10

MILLIONS OF CATERPILLARS

I ■ '■ — +■■ SUDDEN PLAGUE IN KENTISH : ORCHARDS. GROWERS RUINED. TREES STRIPPED OF LEAF AND BLOSSOM. I The Daily Express correspondent at Deal reports that humdreds of acres of apple and plum trees in this part of Kent have been completely destroyed by a caterpillar and maggot invasion, and the losses* to the growers already amount to thousands of pounds. j Trees which a few days ago gave promise of a rich and abundant. yield are now completely stripped of all leaf and blossom, so ,jmuch so that mile after mile of Kent's most picturesque countryside and fruit-producing districts resemble a barren waste. /The villages that have suffered most from this plague are Woodnesborough, Staple, Westmarsh, Goldstone, and Ash. Even Sandwich has been invadMany of the orchard owners are confronted with ruin. A shortage of home-grown fruits is in prospect. Mr. Charles Rogers, owner of Beacons Hill plantations-, at Woodnesr borough, said to me to-day:—. I "The destruction means a loss to me of at least £300 and about 700 bushels of fruit on one orchard alone. Only two weeks ago there was a wonderful show of fruit of all descriptions, especially apples and plums. I never recollect a better season for a good, yield. All the trees were a picture. ' "Now, in two or three days the cate-rpillar has done its work', and our living has gone. There must be millions and millions of them. "It is not only the initial loss, which is bad enough; it will take several years for the trees to recover their fitness. | "If in two or three years the trees begin to bear again the fruit will be pool and sickly and unfit for the market." HORDES THAT COME IN THE NIGHT. The same correspondent, ■writing ou the following day, says: Destruction • caused by the caterpillar invasion 'is , much . greater than, w^as thought at) ' first, ajid it is estimated that the output of each orchard affected will be re- ' duoed by at least 500 bushels. There was no warning of the plague. ( One. day the orchards were in full bloom and foliage; twenty-four hours 1 latei they were a bare desolation. The i swarm came like a thief in the sight, | Farmers and fruit-growers are cdm- ' plaining bitterly of their immense i losses. All are agreed that there will ,be a serious shortage*of home-grown fruit. "We cannot understand *it," declared a large fruit-grower. "At the proper ; season we sprayed all oijr trees with . the strongest disinfectant t&e could procure, but it has~been:.next to useless. "The caterpillar is so sraall that ho reaches where the liquid cahno^^iU}trate." „ , "s' Another fruit-grower attributed th© planuo to the wholesale slaughter of birds. The Kent caterpillar comes from 'an egg laid by the winter moth, which de- ! posits it in trees during the winter. ; The most favoured protection is grease-binding-paper smeared with sticky stuff tied round the trunk of the tree', which prevents the moth from climbing .up. I The insect is green in colour and so i small that it would lie comfortably across a halfpenny, A plague of caterpillars and bright ; attacked fruit trees and forest trees • throughout England in June, 1918. The ; plague recurred in June, 1919, and in June, J922, Kent orchards being especially menaced. Last year an aeroplane scattered insecticide on fifty acres of fruit trees on I the Portobello Farm at Kingadown, near Sevenoaks. Scarcely a single caterpillar was left alive.