New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 773 



The false tarnished plant-bug seems to be widely 

 Damage distributed in western New York but it is only in 



and its scattered orchards that it does much harm. Where 



prevention. thoroughly established, though, it is a serious pest. 



In one large pear plantation near Lockport in 1908 

 it was estimated that only one pear in four«escaped attack, and that 

 75 per ct. of those attacked would prove unmarketable at maturity. 

 The worst injured young pears were picked off as soon as possible 

 after the attack of the insects had ended, in which thinning it was 

 estimated that the harvest was reduced at least 500 bushels. Several 

 other orchards suffered .similarly, though less severely. All the lead- 

 ing commercial varieties of pears are attacked; some sorts that have 

 been injured severely in the same or different orchards being Bart- 

 lett, Angouleme, Clairgeau, Seckel and Kieffer. 



It is believed that in some cases the attack has come from insects 

 feeding and breeding in bushy woodlands adjoining the orchards, 

 or from weedy and shrubby roadsides, ditches and fences; but in at 

 least one case where the injury has been very severe the orchard 

 and its surroundings are very well kept and free from rubbish of 

 anjr kind. It is probable that when the insect becomes well estab- 

 lished in an orchard it can maintain itself there, no matter how clean 

 the cultivation; but when the invasion is only slight, cleaning up 

 waste land, weedy spots, growths of wild grape and sumac along 

 borders or ditches and the maintenance of clean culture will aid in 

 controlling the pest and may get rid of it. 



The main protective resource, however, must be spraying. The 

 grower who has any fear of attack by this insect should examine his 

 trees carefully, commencing with the dropping of the petals, and if 

 the young nymphs are found should spray immediately. Ordinarily, 

 one application, made just after the blossoming period, should con- 

 trol the bugs efficiently. Treatment should r.ot be delayed until 

 injuries commence to show on the young fruits. In the Station's 

 spraying tests, tobacco extract (40 per ct. nicotine (Black Leaf 40), 

 using three-fourths of a pint of the extract to one hundred gallons 

 of water to which are added three pounds of soap) has given the 

 most satisfactory results of the various mixtures which have been 

 tried. In applying the spray the trees should be drenched, special 

 pains being taken to wet both surfaces of the leaves. Some growers 

 have combined the nicotine extract with dilute lime-sulphur con- 

 taining arsenate of lead as applied for codling moth with equally 

 satisfactory results on both insects and foliage and by this means 

 avoided the necessity of an extra spraying. But as there is danger 

 of burning pear foliage by drenching the trees with lime-sulphur, we 

 would advise, as a general recommendation, a special treatment with 

 nicotine and soap to combat this pest. 



