238 EXPERI^tENIAL FARMS 



4-5 EDWARD VII., A. 1905 



Apples badly disfigured were sent by Mr. C. L. Stephens, from Orillia, Ont., and 

 similar samples were also received from two or three localities in Quebec province. 



Eemedies. — The remedies for the Plum Curculio are as follows : (1.) Spraying 

 the trees early in the 'season so as to destroy the beetles which for some time feed 

 upon the buds and opening leaves of plum trees. The second spraying, with poisoned 

 Bordeaux mixture, should be made when the plums are about as large as pease. This 

 will coat the young fruit so that the beetles are destroyed when they feed on the fruit 

 or cut the crescents for egg laying. (2.) The destruction of all windfalls or injured 

 fruit that drops, so as to clear away all fruit before the larvae emerge and enter the 

 ground to pupate. Poultry, pigs and sheep help well in this work. (3) The plough- 

 ing up and cultivation of orchards so as to remove grass and other vegetation which, 

 besides weakening the trees, gives places for the insects to hide in. The depth at which 

 the larvffi pupate is about an inch beneath the surface, and the pupation in this part of 

 Canada takes place during July ; therefore cultivation during that month will destroy 

 many of the pupce, and this has been found the remedy which has given the best re 

 suits in old orchards which had been in sod for many years and in which the fruit had 

 been fferiously injured year after year. (4.) 'The jarring of plum trees, which is much 

 written about and highly recommended, will certainly destroy many of the beetles, but 

 costs too much for labour when compared with spraying with insecticides, which give 

 more certain results in my experience. As the plum and peach are rather easily in- 

 jured by some arsenical poisons, arsenate of lead, 1 lb. to 50 gallons, is preferable to 

 Paris green for these trees. 



The Apple Maggot (Trypeta pomonella, Walsh). — The Apple Maggot has never 

 done much harm in Canada, although its injuries are very serious in the apple orchards 

 of Main and some other Statra adjoining our borders. The slender white maggots,, 

 about a quarter of an inch in length, burrow in all directions through the flesh of 

 attacked apples, feeding upon the pulp and leaving discoloured channels (Plate I., fig. 

 5). There are sometimes as many as a dozen maggots in a single apple, but even 

 one is sufficient to render it worthless. The eggs are inserted beneath the skin of the 

 fruit by beautifully marked black and white flies, with shining greenish golden eyes. 

 The general appearance of the fly is shown in Plate I., fig. 6. In size it is about half 

 a.^s large as the ordinary house fly. There is only one brood in the year, and the eggs 

 ere inserted into the fruit by the females with a sharp ovipositor. Egg-laying takes 

 place from the beginning of July until autumn. The young maggots become full 

 grown in about six weelcs, and their work, as a rule, causes the fruit to ripen pre- 

 maturely and fall to the ground, when the maggots work their way out and enter the 

 •soil for a short distance, where they change to pale-coloured puparia, but inside which 

 they remain as maggots until the following spring The pupa forms only a few days 

 before the perfect insects appear the next summer. The maggots of late-laid eggs are 

 frequently in the fruit at the time it is picked, and these develop, destroying the fruit 

 more and more as they grow. Apples apparently sound when gathered may, by the 

 presence of eggs or young larvae, afterwards become perfectly useless. The develop- 

 ment of the maggot is slower in late and hard fruits. 



In September last I received from Mr- E. W. Shepherd, the well known apple 

 shipper, of Como, Que., samples of infested Fameuse apples, with the following in- 

 formation : — 



' Monti'cnl, Que., September 2G. — I mail you to-day specimens of Pameuse 

 apples taken from one of my orchards, an old one, which show serious blemishes. There 

 is some disease unknown to me which has affected some of the Fameuse trees in that 

 orchard. The outside skin of the apples shows dents, and, when the apple is cut open, 

 there are brown punky spots in the flesh ; the fruit is generally undersized, and in any 

 case is practically worthless for sale. No other varieties are affected here, as far as 

 I have been able to learn; but there are some other orchards which are suffering in 

 a similar way to my own. 



