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"Chemical warfare" is meant literally. With ever-increasing success, men have learned to poison their trees' foes, at least in those years when the counterattacks are properly timed. How important timing is can be seen in two cases of some prevalence. One is the poisoning, through its stomach, of an adroit one-inch herbivore called the bagworm, which spins and carries around with it a conical sack of silk and chewed-up plant material. After only a few days of foliar feeding, this creature attaches its bag to a twig and sacks in, to sleep until emerging as a moth. The only time you can hope to make it eat poison is during its brief browsing period. Otherwise it is sheathed against any attack you may make short of picking off all the bags and destroying them, which is no small task in an arborvitae hedge or a grove of maples. |
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