296 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



orchard that thej sweep the whole crop before them, but each 

 and every year, they are on band early and in such numbers as to 

 annihilate nearly every specimen of the plum, throughout the 

 whole country, and then they go for the cherry, the apple or the 

 peach. So regular has been their appearance and so complete the 

 destruction they occasion, that the cultivation of the plum, one of 

 the most delicious and hardy of our native fruits, has virtually 

 been abandoned. Yet there is, perhaps, no insect that can be so 

 easily met, and no crop of fruit that can be protected with greater 

 certainty and less labor than this, except it be the currant 

 worm and the currant. That productive, hardy old standby has 

 also been given up to a relentless foe, without an effort to save it. 

 There is no crop in field or garden, excepting fruit, that we 

 expect to secure any return from, without much care and labor, 

 and with many of them, it is one continued war with weeds, 

 enemies or adverse conditions from the time the seed is planted 

 until the crop is harvested. This, farmers take for granted, and 

 accept as one of the necessary conditions, but the great majority 

 of them seem to think that the fruit crop needs no attention; if 

 it don't take care of itself, it must go. It is a shame that two 

 such hardy, productive and valuable varieties of fruit should be 

 given up to certain annihilation, where an amount of labor, ten to 

 one less than is required for an acre of wheat or corn, would 

 usually secure a return ten times to one greater. Much has been 

 said and written about the Curculio. It is a hackneyed subject. 

 Everybody is acquainted with "The Little Turk," and many can 

 tell just how to go to work to outwit him, and save their plums, 

 but they don't do it, and it will, probably, be of little use to 

 refresh their memories, or to try to get the masses to put their 

 knowledge to practical use, but the hope that a few may be 

 induced to give a little attention to saving a fruit so well adapted 

 to our soil and climate, and which will yield so liberal returns for 

 the care bestowed, and that the practical demonstration of what 

 can be accomplished will lead others to do likewise, has induced 

 us to give a brief discription of this well known enemy, and of 

 the means by which he may be overcome. 



