392 Bulletin 148. 



Keep the soil moist, and await developments. In short, start an 

 experiment in breeding the insect. Nothing will interest your children 

 more than a simple experiment of this kind. When you find that the 

 beetles have emerged from the soil in your cage, then get out the 

 jarring machines. 



A second method of determining when the beetles are at work is 

 to begin in the latter part of May and jar a few trees every day. It 

 will be an easy matter to discover just when to turn loose the rest of 

 your batteries upon the enemy. 



Those who practice the jarring method successfully, jar the trees 

 every day, if possible, from the time the beetles appear until their 

 numbers decrease beyond the danger point, or only a few are captured 

 each time. In one orchard in 1897, 200 curculios were jarred from 

 seven trees, and it was not an uncommon thing to get nearly 50 

 beetles from a single tree at one jarring when they were the most 

 numerous. Usually it will not be necessary to jar the trees for more 

 than six or eight weeks, often less. 



This jarring process involves considerable labor and expense, but 

 experienced fruit growers tell us it costs only from 15 to 20 cents to 

 jar a tree during the season. One should consider that this slight 

 expenditure may often favorably decide the important question of a 

 large crop of fine fruit, or a meagre crop of " knotty " and " wormy " 

 fruit. Fruit growers and others who have insect foes to fight do not 

 often think of this phase of the question when considering the expense 

 which a certain method may involve. 



After you capture the curculios with your jarring device, then 

 exercise your own ingenuity in killing them. Some put them in 

 kerosene or boiling water, while others have a charcoal stove built for 

 the purpose, in which everything that falls onto the sheet is burned. 



Mark Vernon Slingerland. 



