Peaches in Westekn New York. 



377 



The fruit bark-beetle or pin-hole borer {Scolytiis rugtdosus) is 

 coming to be a serious pest ia this state. The black beetle 

 is only a tenth of an inch long, and it bores through the 

 bark of the trunk and branches of the plum, peach, apricot, 



cherry, pear, apple, quince 

 and some ornamental 

 trees. It cuts a clean 

 round hole the size of 

 a large pin, and limbs 

 or trunks which are badly 

 attacked look as if they had 

 received a charge of very 

 fine shot. I have been 

 called to see two peach or- 

 chards which were supposed 

 to have the yellows, but 

 most, if not all, the diffi- 

 culty lay in the punctures 

 of these tiny beetles. A 

 piece of a branch from one 

 orchard is shown natural 

 size in Fig. 7. If one looks 

 closely he sees the minute 

 holes, and below them a 

 lump of gum which has 

 oozed from the punctures. 

 Upon the same farm, dead 

 apricot trees were found to 

 be completely riddled by 

 these pests, the entire bark 

 of the trunk being loosened 

 from the wood by the 

 burrowing of the insects. 



7. Holes of fruit bark-beetle or pin- 

 hole borer {Scolytus rngulosiis). 



Here, too, the larv« or grubs were very abundant, some- 

 times as many as a dozen being found in a space as large as 

 a dime. In the peach branch (Fig. 7) no larvae were to be 

 found, and there were rarely any burro wings between the bark 

 and wood. The hole ended in the sapwood and no beetles were 



