loo TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



prefers small pieces of oak-bark, which he places close around the tree 

 with the inner or concave side pressed to the ground. Stones do not 

 answer well, and corn-cobs are objectionable because it requires so much 

 time to discover and destroy the Curculios, which hide in their deep 

 cavities." 



The best time of day to take them from under the chips is undoubt- 

 edly in the afternoon; but it must not be left too long, as they begin to 

 leave and scatter over the trees as soon as the sun approaches the horizon. 

 The chips should be laid around the trees as soon as the frost is out of 

 the ground, for more beetles will be caught under them during a few 

 weeks thus early in the season than throughout the rest of the year. 



KEEPING IT IN CHECK BY THE OFFER OF PREMIUMS. 



After visiting St. Joseph and vicinity, I passed into Ontario, where I 

 found the trees overloaded with fine unblemished fruit. I found my 

 friend, Mr. Wm. Saunders, of London, also much occupied with, and 

 interested in, the Curculio question. He was, in fact, carefully counting 

 different lots of this insect which had been received from different parts. 

 of the Dominion ; for be it known, that the enterprising Fruit-Growers' 

 Association of Ontario, in its praise-worthy efforts to check the increase 

 of the Curculio, offered a cent -per head for every one which should be 

 sent to our friend, who happens to be secretary of that body. What 

 would you think, gentlemen, if the Legislature of Illinois, or if this 

 Society should offer an equally liberal premium -per capita for every little 

 Turk captured.'' Wouldn't you set about capturing them in earnest, 

 though ! The Legislature might stand it, and I am not sure but that 

 some such inducement, held out by the State to its fruit-growing citizens, 

 would pay, and prove the most effective way of subduing the enemy. 

 But the Horticultural Society that should undertake it, would have to be 

 pretty liberally endowed. Just think of it; ye who catch from three to 

 five thousand per day ! The bugs would pay a good deal better than 

 the peaches. However, very fortunately for the Ontario Fruit-Growers' 

 Association, their good offer did not get noised abroad as much as it 

 might have been, and the little Turk occurs in such comparatively small 

 numbers, that up to the time I left, only 10,731 had been received. 



JARRING BY MACHINERY. 



Of course there is no more expeditious way of jarring down the 

 Curculio than by the Hull Curculio-catcher. Yet I confess that after 

 extensive observations in many different parts of the country I am forced 

 to the conclusion that this machine does not give the satisfaction one 

 could wish. In my paper last year I showed that where it was con- 

 stantly used the trees suffered serious injury from bruising, and It is a 

 rather significant fact that in most orchards where it has been Introduced, 

 some modification has soon followed, or else it has been entirely aban- 

 doned; while in the East they still adhere to the improved stretchers, 

 and mallet. It seems to me that the machine, as made by your State 

 Horticulturist two years ago, was not only too heavy and unwieldy, but 

 incapable of giving the requisite sharp jairing rap to the branches of a 



