Summer Meeting. 71 



young beetles emerge and begin to puncture them also, but for feeding 

 purposes only. As the female beetles are quite slow in depositing their 

 eggs, and vary somewhat in the time of beginning, we have some of them 

 laying eggs in apples as late as the last of July or the first of August, 

 at which time the young beetles are beginning to emerge in great num- 

 bers. 



Remedies. — As a result of my experimental work, I can now say 

 that it is perfectly possible, practical and comparatively easy to success- 

 fully fight this pest in the apple orchard and to prevent its doing undue 

 injury. In order to do this, however, we must take advantage of some 

 weak points in the insects economy which we have described. 



The four principal habits we can take advantage of are : First, the fact 

 that the adults hibernate during winter under rubbish and the hke ; sec- 

 ond, that in the spring the adults feed to a certain extent on the de- 

 veloping leaves before the trees bloom ; third, that the larva, in order 

 to live and reach their complete larval stage, must be in apples that 

 drop to the ground before the larva are much over half grown, other- 

 wise they die; fourth, the fact that the full grown larva leave the apples 

 and enter the ground an inch or two and there transform to pupa that 

 arc easily. killed. 



It is well known to horticulturists that an apple orchard near a 

 forest suflFers more from the "sting" than one out in the clear, and that 

 the part nearest the forest is "stung" first. This is because of the fact 

 that the plum curculio is found in certain wild fruits which grow abund- 

 antly in our forests, and also because the beetles seek the timber to a 

 large extent during the fall for hibernating purposes, and seek the nearest 

 food early in the summer. This same rule holds good in regard to the 

 proximity of peach and plum orchards, and hence it is well to have the 

 plum and peach orchard as far as possible from the apple orchard. 



In visiting various apple orchards I noticed that those orchards that 

 received thorough or even only slight cultivation suffer less from the 

 "sting" than those that are allowed to grow up to grass and weeds. This 

 fact is easily accounted for by the removal of hibernating quarters and 

 the destruction of pupa. 



By spraying the apple orchard with arsenate of lead twice before the 

 blossoms open, one can kill about fifty per cent of the beetles that eat 

 of the young leaves at this time of the year. The spraying should be 

 done very thoroughly, and if rains wash off the poison, the spraying 

 should be repeated. It must be borne in mind, however, that this spray- 

 ing- is not to take the place of other methods of fighting the insect. It 

 is only a help towards lessening their numbers. If one is not going to 



