EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 195 



peach-growers practice it even in the early season, seems to show that it 

 also fails in actual practice. 



CHICKENS AND STOCK. 



The same habit of falling to the ground, and a general timidity, gives 

 us another method of combatting this enemy. Thus it is often found that 

 by keeping a large flock of poultry among the trees, or even many hogs or 

 sheep, a full crop of fruit can be secured each year. In this case the 

 insects are eaten up, trodden on, or frightened away. I know of farmers 

 who have in this way secured full crops of plums with almost no exception, 

 while neighbors have secured no plums at all. Often a tree close by a 

 door or path bears heavily each year, while others not thus situated suffer 

 severely. Here the insects are probably frightened away. 



PLANTING PLUM TREES. 



As before stated, the pear, apple, cherry, and often the peach can be 

 secured against attack by planting numerous plum trees among the others. 

 The curculios prefer the plums, and attack these in preference to the other 

 fruit. I have seen cherries and apples saved in this way repeatedly, while 

 orchards not far removed, with no plum trees, suffered serious injury. As 

 our wild fruit trees are more and more cut down, this method will be more 

 and more valuable. 



THE JARRING METHOD. 



This old reliable method, first suggested, I think, by the father of J. J. 

 Thomas, the venerable and distinguished pomologist, of Union Springs, 

 New York, is today the surest, cheapest, and best method to banish the 

 curculio and save our plums. With this we can let the curculio work till 

 the fruit is sufficiently thinned, when we can proceed to jar, and surely — 

 no doubt in this method — save our fruit beautiful and sound. As we have 

 seen, the curculio often spends the day on the ground beneath the tree. 

 Jarring, then, must be done either late in the evening or very early in the 

 morning; as late or as early as we can see to work. If in the evening, the 

 early morning nap is not cut short, and the dew is not so troublesome. As 

 we have seen, the time to jar is from the time the calix falls from the tree 

 — about May 20, in central Michigan — till the first brood of weevils are all 

 gone — about July 1, at this place. In rare cases it may be well to jar later 

 if the punctures of the plums by the second brood are threatening, else 

 the plums may rot because of such punctures. The number of times 

 required to jar will vary. Often it will not exceed ten or fifteen for the 

 •entire season. If, upon jarring, we find we get only one or two, or better, 

 no specimens, we can then safely omit a day, and if the next jarring is 

 ■equally fruitless we may omit two days. If we jar each year, and gather 

 and destroy the fallen fruit, as soon as it falls, the work will, I think, be 

 less and less each successive year. 



The method of jarring is, in short, to place a sheet under the tree and 

 give the tree, or, in case it is quite large, each branch a quick, sharp blow. 

 The insects fall to the sheet and are easily gathered and crushed. 



The sheet may be mounted on one or two wheels like a wheel barrow, 

 in case of large orchards. The frame holding the sheet may be so made 



