STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. Ill 



such time until near evening, providod the weather continues warm, curculios from 

 all the surrounding orchards are flying in, and have the time until the orchard is again 

 jarred, in which to deposit their eggs. If we allow an influx of five insects to each 

 tree daily, to come in from the surrounding orchards, and ten eggs to each insect as 

 their average deposit, then in twenty days we have two thousand stung fruits to the 

 tree, as the egg product of the migratory insects alone. Extravagant as this esti- 

 mate may appear to the uninitiated, nevertholoss it is not one-twentieth the number 

 caught by me in my own orchard the past summer, and other years when the surround- 

 ing orchards were destitute of fruit. 



Indeed, so great were the numbers of curculios captured on our trees, that all the 

 fmit grown by us the previous year, admitting them all to have been wormy, could 

 have bred only a small part of them. 



Notwithstanding curculios breed rapidly, and fly freely from one part of the orchard 

 to anothei", or to distant points, in seai'ch of fruit in which to deposit: yet so long as 

 finiit is plenty, in which they can put their eggs, they usually remain near the place 

 where they were bred. In such instances the trouble of protecting the fruit is not 

 great, since the sexes seek each other on the trees some ten or fllteen days before 

 depositing their eggs. Therefore, if the fact be borne in mind that tliey are wholly 

 unable to fly at a temperature below 70°, and rarely ever fly freely when the tempera- 

 ture is below 85°, it will greatly lessen the labor of catching. Or, to present the case 

 in a different way: if curculios were to assemble on the trees, say ten days before 

 laying their eggs, and the curculio catcher were run every other day, then each 

 individual insect would stand at least Ave chances of getting caught before it was in 

 readiness to lay its eggs. Thus it will be seen that it matters not how many insects 

 are bred in one's own grounds, since we are certain to catch all before they are I'eady 

 to lay. But when curculios come in from other points, it is because of the scarcity of 

 fruit at the place from which they migrate, and as their flight is in the middle 

 and after part of the day, their arrival usually occurs after the run of the orchard has 

 been made. 



On this account it is difllcult in the latter case to protect fruit, while in the former, 

 the labor will be comparatively easy and certain. 



In this connection another fact is worthy of note, namely, that in grounds infested 

 only by its own insects the curculio season may be terminated, by judicious use of the 

 catchers, ttfteen or twenty days earUer than could be done when the migratory insects 

 have to be caught. The remarks I have made respecting isolated orchards apply 

 equally well to contiguous orchai-ds, since an arrangement entered into by all the 

 proprietors, to run their curculio catcliers after each warm day, or part of a day, 

 would end the season in the whole neighborhood, the same as though the whole were 

 but one orcliard. 



For several years I have been quite satisfied that the rot in peaches and plums was 

 mainly induced by the punctures made by curculios ; and to fully test this view, 1 

 carefully protected the fruit on some Hale's Early peach trees, by jarring them daily, 

 and later, when the rot began to appear, by picking ofl' all the stung fruit. The Hale's 

 so treated matured fruit as free from rot as any other variety, while on neglected 

 trees, ever>' fruit rotted. 



Observation also has taught that one great cause of I'ot in early peaches is due to 



