ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



[April, 



before or during a rain, or just after a soaking rain, when the ground is 

 thoroughly wet. This will help to feed and nourish the tree, to stimulate 

 it into renewed activity, and it will also destroy the root lice themselves. 

 The application should be made at the rate of at least a thousand pounds 

 to the acre, and a ton to the acre would be none too heavy. Instead of 

 kainit, ground tobacco may be used with good chances of success. In 

 this case a trench should be dug around the tree at a distance of about 

 two feet from the trunk, and in this trench, which may be of spade width, 

 two inches of tobacco dust may be placed. The tobacco, like the kainit, 

 is a good fertilizer, and is rich in potash. It will become active only when 

 thoroughly wet, and the nicotine coming into contact with the roots of 

 the plants and the insects feeding on them will result in their death. Of 

 the two measures the use of the kainit is to be preferred in my experience. 

 ****** 



Attacking the peach and the plum, though much the most injurious on 

 the latter is the plum curculio, an insect so well known to all growers of 

 fruits that it needs no description. The signs of the injury are noticed on 

 .the fruit when it becomes as large as a hazel nut or a little larger, and we 

 get then small crescent-shaped marks numbering from one to a dozen on 

 a single fruit peach, plum, cherry, apple or pear. In each of these 

 crescent marks an egg is deposited and in a short time the larva hatches 

 and works into the fruit. Most varieties of plums and many peaches drop 

 when infested by the curculio larva?, but most apples and pears do not 

 fall as the result of curculio injury, but rather the curculio can develop 

 only in such fruit as falls to the ground from other causes. The object 

 of the crescent mark made by the larva is to prevent injury to the egg. 



If we cut out the cresent itself we notice that a little flap is loosened, and 

 in cutting through this flap we see that the egg is laid in its middle. It 

 can be seen readily that in this position the loosened tissue ceases grow- 

 ing, but it does not wither or die rapidly, hence no pressure is exerted 

 upon the egg, which is very soft and white. The rapid growth of a vigor- 

 ous apple is more than the insect can stand, and only in rare instances do 

 larvae develop; but if the apple falls to the ground and growth ceases 



