STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 227 



and yet Mr. W.'s trees had traps under them, and had heen carefully 

 tended from near tlie time of Mr. R.'s discovery. 



A query here presents itself and one too of much practical importance. 

 For example: Supposing no bugging by traps or otherwise had been 

 <lone, up to the very morning of the day when curculios commenced 

 stingmg the fruit, and that on that morning a curculio catcher or other 

 contrivance for thoroughly jarring the trees liad been used, would not all 

 the curculios have been taken which had previously come into the orchaid 

 and l)een trapped, together with those which diil not enter the traps.'' 

 This query seems to us all the more important from the fact that at the 

 time curculios began to sting, the peaches on those trees which had been 

 most thoroughly bugged seemed to have curculios enough on them to 

 <lestroy all the fruit in a few days. If all the curculios on entering the 

 orchard would go down under the cover jorovided for them, then the new 

 mode of catching them would be best, since the labor could be performed 

 by women and children. But any method of catching which fails to 

 take all the insects, would not lighten the labor of jarring the trees. We 

 have long since determined that it makes no difference how many curcu- 

 lios come together in the orchard for mating, or how long they are in 

 doing so, provided the orchard is run in time to jar the trees twice before 

 any of the fruit is stung. For aught that we can now see, jarring trees 

 may safely be delayed as long when trapping is not resorted to as where 

 it is; and for this reason, we can not understand how results of much 

 practical im})ortance can be realized by laying traps for curculios. 



From present appearances, it seems that as soon as the weather 

 becomes very warm, or by the time peaches are as large as a small hazel- 

 nut, curculios mainly go into the trees and do not descend to the traps. 

 From this time there are not less than thirty days of active work to be 

 done with a curculio catcher, and that, too, in the very height of the cur- 

 culio season, during which time fully nine-tenths of all the insects which 

 enter the orchards are to be taken. At Alton, sweet cherries and plums 

 have to be run from about May ist to June 30th. Peach trees, from, say 

 May 15th to the latest date named. Judging from the diflerence in cli- 

 mate between Alton and St. Joseph, their curculio season would com- 

 mence about fifteen days later than at Alton ; and by reason of their 

 cooler climate, their curculios would continue active until August ist, 

 after which, at both points, stragglers would appear near to the end of 

 the season. 



At Alton, curculios, from neighboring orchards and from the forests, 

 begin to migrate freely about the first of June, and from that time on 

 for the next twenty to thirty days they are most difficult to control, 

 because they fiy freely the after part of the day; and during this later 

 period, when they enter the orchard they are ready to lay their eggs; 

 therefore, they must be caught as soon after they enter as possible. 



On Mr. Random's first making known his discovery, it was, we believe, 

 generally regarded as being a sure and easy way of ridding the orchard, 

 or as the editor of the vSt. Joseph Herald stated: "There is no doubt 

 whatever that the long-desired means of exterminating the curculio is 



