Xew York Agriculturai. Experiment Station. 423 



recently proven a serious pest in some of the large cherry orchards 

 of Western j^ew York. A similar if not identical species occurs 

 in some of the middle and eastern states. 



The life history of this insect has not been fully worked out. 

 It is known, however, that the eggs are laid nearly or quite under 

 the skin of the ripe fruit, and that the maggots work in the flesh. 

 In depositing the egg the female makes a small round hole, prob- 

 ably with her ovipositor, through the skin. Until the fruit has 

 been sufficiently eaten to cause decay, this small hole is all there 

 is to indicate that the maggot is inside. For this reason newly 

 infested fruit is often quite difficult to detect. When full grown, 

 the maggots leave the fruit, as sho^vn by specimens kept under 

 observation by Lowe, and form the puparium or resting stage 

 in any convenient place, such as the bottom of fruit baskets. If 

 the fruit is on the ground the maggots will go into the ground for 

 a short distance. The adults emerge in the spring early enough 

 to lay their eggs in the earliest varieties of sour cherries. Egg 

 laying probably continues throughout the season of the latest varie- 

 ties. The number of broods is not positively known. The insect 

 probably winters in the pupa stage. 



Treatment. — This species will probably prove, like the apple 

 maggot, a difficult one to control. Good, cultivation and keep- 

 ing the packing houses free from rubbish will undoubtedly have 

 some effect. Lowe found in the infested orchards which he ex- 

 amined that the insect first attacked the fruit on a few trees in 

 one section and gradually spread to other sections of the orchards. 

 This indicates that it spreads slowly, and also that destroying 

 the crop on the few trees that were first attacked, while an heroic 

 measure, would probably be the means of preventing serious in- 

 festation of the orchard. 



PLANT LICE. 



Several species of plant lice attack the cherry. As a rule they 

 do not occur on sour cherry trees in sufficient numbers to do seri- 

 ous injury. Sweet cherry trees, however, are quite frequently 

 attacked by the black cherry aphis, Myzus cerasi Fab. The lice 



