22 "* AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



lish elms in this state it doubtless occurs also on currants here 

 as it does in Europe. 



These insects, three of which are "new species," are described 

 and figured and pictures of their work are given in Bulletin 225 

 of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 



As most of these aphids are present on the bushes at the time 

 the leaves start in the spring, the logical treatment is to spray 

 thoroughly with tobacco decoction, either home made or some 

 reliable commercial brand, before the leaves become so much 

 distorted that a spray is not practicable. If neglected until the 

 leaves become massed the shoots with the worst infestations may 

 as well be clipped off and burned, and the others thoroughly 

 sprayed. 



Poisoned Sweetened Baits and Other Methods of Control 



OF the Currant Fly. 



For several years, people in many parts of the state have been 

 digging out their currant and gooseberry bushes because the 

 fruit was so badly infested with maggots that it could not be 

 used. These maggots are the larval stage of a banded winged 

 fruit fly which pupates in the ground over winter and emerges 

 in the spring in time to develop eggs to be deposited in the 

 berries when they are of the right size. 



In view of the fact that poisoned sweetened baits have been 

 reported as a successful method of combating certain other 

 closely related fruit flies, the Maine Agricultural Exf>eriment 

 Station secured the services of Doctor H. Severin, a specialist of 

 long experience in this particular line of work, in order to attack 

 the problem of the control of the currant or, gooseberry fruit fly 

 with the use of poisoned sweetened baits. 



The fact that the tgg is deposited within the berry and the 

 maggot does all of its work in the fruit and that the pupal stage 

 is passed under the ground makes it a difficult pest to deal with 

 in these stages. Such remedies have been suggested as picking 

 the entire crop of berries and destroying them before they begin 

 to ripen and before any begin to drop. By thus sacrificing one 

 crop the entire brood of flies would be unable to deposit their 

 eggs and the patch freed from them until they were introduced 

 again from some other source. This method when consistently 

 carried out over a large area for one season ought to reduce the 



