FORTY-THTRD ANNUAL REPORT. 71 



maggot, but the larvae invariably work around the pit. As a nile, the 

 maggots attain maturity simultaneously with the ripening of the cher- 

 ries, and they thus find their way to the consumer. This is the only 

 stage with which most growers and consumers are familiar. Until the 

 maggots are nearly full grown, their work does not show on the surface 

 of the fruit. 



There is never more than one maggot in a cherry and unfortunately, 

 it works in a very inconspicuous manner, so that it is difficult to de- 

 termine its presence until the damage is wrought. 



Infested fruit shows a decided tendency to brown-rot,»and upon ex- 

 amining closely those cherries in which brown-rot was just beginning, 

 the egg-punctures were seen in the center of the decay. For this reason, 

 most of the fruit rotting on the trees has been found to contain cherry- 

 maggots. It has been observed that few infested cherries fall from the 

 trees, differing in this respect from the work of the railroad-worm. 



The maggots are generally full grown b}' the time of ripening, and 

 crawl out of the cherries and drop to the ground, where they transform 

 to puparia and pass the winter and late spring within an inch of the 

 surface of the ground. 



Cherry fruit-flies have long been considered one of the hardest of 

 orchard pests to control. Some remedies have been suggested, such as 

 destroying the entire crop of infested fruit, or removing the top layer 

 of soil from beneath the trees after the maggots have pupated. Such 

 treatments have been of little avail. 



There is now a certain means of destroying this pest. A spray, simi- 

 lar to the one employed against the railroad worm, is used. It con- 

 sists of a mixture of five pounds of arsenate of lead, three gallons of 

 cheap molasses, and one hundred gallons of water. This spray is not 

 intended for the larvae, but is used for the adult flies that come to the 

 trees for egg-laying and for feeding. The spray is not applied until the 

 flies appear in the orchard, at which time the cherries are- about half- 

 grown and just beginning to color. There are usually two applications, 

 one about the tenth of June, and the second about June twenty-fifth. 

 The spray is applied through a syringe holding about one pint, and this 

 amount will be sufficient for a medium sized tree, so little of the mix- 

 ture being needed to kill the flies. 



Results have been very gratifying. In tests, the fruit of unsprayed 

 trees resulted in infestation of fully one-third the crop, while that of 

 sprayed trees was remarkably clean, having only one-sixth of one per 

 cent infested. The sprayed fruit also showed a noticeable lack of brown 

 rot and of eurculio injury. 



