DISCUSSIONS AT GRAND HAVEN. 365 



The Secretary had noticed holes eaten in the strawberry leaves, but could 

 find no insect at work on them. 



Mr. D. B. Williams spoke of a neighbor whose raspberry plants were eaten 

 ■batlly in the same way, by a small green worm. He fumigated them with 

 brimstone and killed the plants. Mr. Williams stated that fumigating with 

 brimstone was a risky, delicate operation, not safely performed but by ex- 

 perienced hands. It was safer, and effectual, to fumigate with Cayenne pepper 

 and tobacco. 



Inquiry was made how to hatch insect eggs. 



Mr. Bidwell answered, put them in a jar and invert the jar, sinking the neck 

 a little in the earth. 



President N. Phillips stated that he had used wire screens, placed over the 

 eggs on the ground. These were better than jars, admitting the air. 



Mr. D. B. Williams said he had found but an average of one curculio to a 

 tree under the chips in a day; aud very few peaches were stung. Eight out of 

 ten needed to be picked off from his trees. He said he had removed the earth 

 from about his peach trees early in the spring to look for borers. Up to a few 

 days since he found a borer at work occasionally, and hence concluded that it 

 ■was not safe to give up the search for them and hill up the dirt until late in 

 June. 



Just before hilling up he would scrape the bark to kill any eggs which might 

 be deposited by the miller. 



Hon. Wm. H. Hurlbut believed in hilling up about peach trees to keep out 

 the grubs, but it must be done just right to be perfectly successful. He would 

 hill up in good season, and hill up so high that when the dirt is taken away in 

 the fall it may be left so all winter, exposing the young grubs to freezing with- 

 out endangering the trees by leaving the roots bare or a hollow about them for 

 "water to gather in. He would keep them hilled up through the summer about 

 a foot high. The borers do not work lower than six inches. Last spring he 

 only found ten or twelve grubs in five or six hundred trees. If, when the trees 

 are hilled up, an old grub should be found in the tree, it will work up towards 

 the top of the hill. The dirt should be hoed away leaving three or four inches 

 of earth about the roots. 



Mr. J. Williams said that one season he neglected to take the dirt away from 

 bis trees until November, so the bark did not have time to harden before 

 freezing. Consequently he lost some trees by this tender bark freezing. He 

 "would remove the hills by the first of October. 



Mr. Bidwell stated that the black worm, which bored into the ends of the 

 twigs, laid its eggs in May, and these hatched out and produced a second 

 crop. 



Mr. Hurlbut referred to the insect that stung the new growth of apple trees, 

 killing them like a blight. The worm could be found in the termination of 

 last years growth, in the pith, and a very small hole at the base of the new 

 growth, where it came out. 



Mr. Bouham, agent for Engle & Co., of Chicago, and the Chicago Journal, 

 stated that in his travels he saw considerable of the depredations of this in- 

 sect. It: was more destructive in Southern Illinois than in Michigan. 



Mr. Hurlbut supposed that the eggs were laid in the fall in the tips of the 

 last growth. 



Mr. Bonham stated that at Benton Harbor an insect resembling the rose bug 

 "was eating the peaches badly. 



