284 REPORT OP STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



one-half the value of the average apple crop. In 1892 the insect is said to 

 have caused a loss of $2,000,000 to the apple growers of Nebraska. 



Through the kindness of the Americayi Agriculturist in furnishing us with 

 the statistics, we will hazard an estimate at the annual tribute which our 

 New York apple growers pay for the ravages of this pest. The average 

 annual crop of apples in New York now amounts to about five million barrels ; 

 as $1.50 per barrel would seem a fair average valuation, the total valuation 

 of the annual crop may be estimated at $7,500,000. Although many New 

 York fruitgrowers are fighting this insect with modern methods, we think 

 that the wormy apples would constitute at least one-third of the total crop. 

 That is. New York fruitgrowers yearly furnish $2,500,000 worth of apples 

 to feed this insect; and there 'must be added to this at least $500,000. 

 worth of pears (certainly a low estimate for New York) which the same in- 

 sect renders worthless. This makes a tax of $3,000,000 which a single insect 

 levies and collects each year from the fruitgrowers of our state. 



ITS FOOD. 



The insect feeds mostly upon fruits, and is above all an apple pest. It has 

 also worked in pears from the earliest times ; in fact, it was first named a 

 "pear-eater" in 1635. (See this quaint account in Fig. 126). Sometimes the 

 insect works in pears as freely as in apples, but usually the percentage of 

 wormy pears is considerably less. Wild haws, crab apples, and quinces are 

 also quite freely eaten by the worms. Sometimes the insect works in the 

 stone fruits. In 1868. Saunders reported it as quite destructive to plums in 

 Canada, and it has recently been found in i^lums in New Mexico. About 

 1870 it was found to have acquired a taste for peaches in this country, and a 

 little later it was bred from apricots. In 1893 Koebele found it infesting 

 cherries in California. It has also been found in Europe in nearly all of 

 these fruits. 



There are several European records of the occurrence of the insect in 

 walnuts and oak-galls. These reports were carefully sifted by Doctor Howard 

 in 1887, and the conclusion reached that the evidence was not sufficient to 

 definitely prove that the insect does sometimes feed upon walnuts or oak- 

 galls. We have seen no further conclusive evidence on this point. In 1869, 

 Doctor Riley recorded having a specimen of the moth which had been bred 

 from the sweetish pulp of a species of screw bean {Strombocarpa monoica) 

 which grows in pods, and which was obtained from the Rocky Mountains.* 

 In 1894, Bruner, of Nebraska, reported that perhaps the insect fed upon the 

 seed-buds of roses. 



ITS NAME. 



Popular name — When the insect was first discussed in 1635, it was named 

 the "pear-eater.'' It was next called the "fruit worm in pears and apples,'' 



* One instance is recorded where the insect apparently tooli an Inclination to litera- 

 ture and mutilated some books to a considerable extent. Apples had been stored near a 

 library and the worms upon leaving the fruit and seeking a place to transform, gnawed 

 their way into some of the books and there spun their cocoons. We also encountered 

 this literary habit of the insect when infested apples were left near books on the office 

 table where this is being written. 



