338 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Professor Beach: It is a very simple arrangement. Tliey have a 

 low axle with two wheels and the cloth they use for this umbrella- 

 shaped concern is ordinary common cloth. It has wooden arms like an 

 umbrella to spread it out, and at the center it opens into a tin box, and 

 as they jar the trees they use brooms to wipe down the bugs into the 

 box and then burn them, or otherAvise destroy them. I can not give 

 you exact measurement of it. It is known as the Johnson Curculio 

 Catcher, of Geneva, N. Y. We find it necessary to run this bug catcher 

 two weeks and longer. We start in with apricots as soon as the buds begin 

 to swell. I have not full confidence in spraying to control fruit crop fungi 

 under the worst conditions. This gentleman is right in describing the 

 conditions which are favorable. I believe we can help keep matters 

 under control by spraying. Copper sulphate alone seems to injure the 

 foliage and we prefer to use ammonial solution. I do not wish to dis- 

 courage spraying, but believe we want to get at the tfuth of the matter, 

 and my impression is we can not always control fruit crop fungi, yet 

 we can help. We always spray our plums for leaf spot. Sometimes in 

 August, just about the time we want the foliage to ripen fruit, the 

 foliage will all fall off and leave the limbs bare. I have in mind one 

 orchard where they did not get the fruit off, and the result was they 

 lost a great many trees the following winter, because they allowed the 

 fruit to ripen when leaves were off. It is something we can not control 

 by spraying, but in spraying you lessen fruit rot fungus. It is easy 

 to spend more time in spraying and in thinning than the fruit is worth. 

 If you are going to thin for size of fruit, you want to begin early. If 

 you wait until the fruit is half-grown you do not get near the benefit 

 you do if you start early. 



Mr. Swaim: I would like to say for the benefit of those who have 

 never had experience in catching plum curculio in this way, that it is 

 the early riser that gets the bugs. The plum curculio is much easier 

 caught very early in the morning while it is cool than they are after the 

 sun gets up and warms them up, as they will fly like a potato bug. 



Mr. Davis: For the small plum grower who raises a few for his own 

 use, I want to give a receipt that beats anything given yet, as it is very 

 cheap and simple. In the evening about sun-down, when there is no air 

 stirring, build a Are of old chips or something under the tree that will 

 not blaze up, a few old rags and a handful of sulphur, and those fumes 

 will rise up and settle in the tree, and when you shake the tree, every 

 curculio, will drop to the ground. Do this every third evening for a 

 while and you will have a fine crop. 



Mr. Shoemaker: I would like to ask a question regarding varieties 

 of plums that grow in this section. It is not necessary to bother about 

 curculio on Wild Goose, Robinson or Pottawattamie, or any native plum 



