The Peach-Tkee Borer, 175 



variety of the peach, all, whether "old relics" or young nursery 

 trees, apparently suffering alike under similar circumstances. But 

 the insect does not coniine itself to the peach. As early as 1823, 

 Harris reared it from the cultivated cherry in Massachusetts.* In 

 1854, Fitch found it working in his cultivated plum trees in New 

 York, and Glover recorded that " nectarines and apricots are as 

 liable to be attacked by these worms as the peach." In 1880, Fuller 

 discovered that the cause of the death of several of his dwarf 

 tiowering almond shrubs was this peach-tree borer woi-king in the 

 roots. The preceding year it was recorded by Milton as working in 

 the roots of azaleas which had been grown during the summer out 

 doors in pots near badly infested peach trees. In 1882, Edwards 

 described the female variety Jltchii from a specimen apparently 

 reared from the roots of wild cherry in West Virginia, and Deve. 

 reaux (Clyde, N. Y.) has recorded (189(>) in Packard's Forest Insects 

 seeing this borer " in the trunk near the ground and in the bark of 

 the roots of young wild cherry-trees." Townsend states (1891) that 

 the insect works in apricot as well as peach in New Mexico, and 

 New York plum and prune growers suffer from the pest, but not to 

 such a serious extent as those who grow peadies. 



In brief then, the peach-tree borer isjMr excellence a peach pest, 

 but may also attack both the wild and cultivated varieties of the 

 cherry, the cultivated varieties of the plums or prunes, nectarines, 

 apricots, flowering almond shrubs, and azaleas. 



As the peach-tree borer is a native of America it must have lived 

 upon some native plant previous to the introduction of the peach 

 into this country. The fact that he found the borer working in his 

 plum trees, led Dr. Fitch to think it quite probable that our indige- 

 nous species of plums were its original food-plants. Marlatt (1896) 

 and other writers have accepted this suggestion, but Devereaux's 

 observations of the insect working in wild cherry led Packard (1890) 



* In 1826, Harris records frequeutly seeing the borers in " those tubercles which 

 deform the limbs of the cherry tree." And in 1841, he states he has " repeatedly 

 obtained both sexes of the moths from borers inhabiting these excrescences " 

 Whether these excresences were the well-known Black Knot fungus or not is not 

 quite clear from the context. Webster bred the moths from cultivated cherry 

 iu Indiana in 1S91. 



