20 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



doubt that much of the defective fruit is winnowed out in the 

 process of cleaning as the infested berries become shrunken and 

 drier than the normal ones. 



The common practice of burning over the barrens every third 

 year undoubtedly is a very potent cause of the blueberry being 

 so comparatively free from pests, as many insects must be kept 

 within bounds by this treatment. It may be that advantage can 

 be taken of this methotl of dealing with the blueberry maggot 

 by burning wider areas if it is found advisable for berry grow- 

 ers to enter into a siege against this insect in the barrens. 



It is hoped that when its habits on the barrens have been 

 more thoroughly studied some means of practical treatment may 

 be suggested to help out the situation so that it will not be nec- 

 essary to shorten the canning season on account of the presence 

 of this insect. 



At any rate, the discovery that the apple maggot is also a 

 blueberry pest has widened our knowledge of this insect and 

 may have an indirect bearing on certain infested orchards in the 

 vicinity of scattered blueberry bushes. It throws a decidedly 

 new light on some phases of the apple maggot problem for 

 Maine. 



Currant and Gooseberry Aphids. 



Every year appeals are sent in to the Maine Agricultural 

 Experiment Station concerning deformed leaves on currant and 

 gooseberry bushes soon after growth starts in the spring. The 

 fresh tender leaves are wrinkled, curled and otherwise stunted 

 and distorted by plantlice that have overwintered on the bushes 

 in the egg stage, thus being ready to attack the new growth as 

 soon as they hatch in the first warm days. As their life his- 

 tories had not been worked out, during the season of 191 3 the 

 Department of Entomology of this Station paid considerable 

 attention to the group of plantlice or aphids that attack the 

 currant and gooseberry. They were found to be particularly 

 difficult to study from the fact that a single collection frequently 

 contained as many as four species with fheir innumerable pro- 

 geny harmoniously feeding in mixed colonies on the same stem 

 and leaves. Thus it was no easy matter to isolate the different 

 species for the purpose of rearing the successive generations. 



