Report of Progress. 



313 



digesting the details of this work, which have accumulated during the 

 past three years, and we hope to get the conclusions ready for publi- 

 cation during the coming year. 



The above extensive experiment on 450 trees, and the increasing 

 correspondence of the division have occupied a large share of our 

 attention since last spring. The funds placed at our disposal by the 

 so-called " Nixon Bill" have enabled us to get in closer touch with 

 New York fruit-growers and general farmers, and this has resulted in 

 a marked increase in the quantity and quality of our correspondence. 

 The leaven of the educational features of the work is undoubtedly 

 beginning to work, for our queries are becoming more and more 

 definite and intelligent. We consider our correspondence one of the 

 most valuable and important features of the work of this division, for 

 we are thus often enabled to reach special and urgent cases quickly. 



In 1896, an insect known as the quince curculio was so destructive 

 in some localities as to lead growers of this fruit to seriously consider 

 the advisability of cutting down their orchards. Early in 1897, we 

 began a critical study of the habits of this pest, and continued our 

 observations during the season, or until we had learned its life-story 

 and had become famihar with its habits. Our observations show that 

 there is little, if any, possibility of poisoning the insect with an 

 arsenical spray, and that early cultivation will have but little effect 

 upon it, thus disproving two of the so-called " remedies " by which it 

 has been supposed that the pest could be reached. Our study of its 

 life revealed some striking variations from its habits of the preceding 

 year. By carefully watching the insect in oiu" cages at the insectary, 

 we were enabled to give several large quince growers warning tliat the 

 pest was appearing in alarming numbers nearly two months later than 

 its schedule time of the preceding year. By following our suggestions, 

 one extensive grower of this fruit, whose crop was nearly an entire 

 failure in 1896, due principally to the work of this insect, was enabled 

 tc harvest the finest crop of quinces he ever had. A few careful 

 observations in our cages at the insectary upon this single insect pest 

 thus resulted in the saving of hundreds of dollars worth of fruit in a 

 single orchard. The result of our study of this quince curculio will be 

 ready for publication as soon as funds are available. 



For several years, hundreds of acres of apple orchards in western 

 New York have been annually stripped of their foliage by canker- 



