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^ State Horticultural Society. 



spray the trees at all before the blossoms open, it is doubtful whether it 

 would be advisable to make a special spraying at this time for the plum 

 curculio. But it usually is the case that orchardists wish to spray their 

 trees before the blossoms open for fungous diseases (which in many re- 

 sjjccts is the best time to do the spraying) or they wish to spray their 

 orchards for other insects, in which case the addition of Paris Green or 

 Scheele's Green with the Bordeaux mixture will be a great help. If one 

 is going to spray for bitter rot, apple scab and other diseases before the 

 blossoms open, and for codling moth after the blossoms fall, the addi- 

 tion of an arsenical poison to the Bordeaux mixture sprayed before the 

 blossoms open, will also kill large numbers of the curculio ; and the 

 spraying with the arsenical poison after the blossoms fall, will not only 

 kill the codling moth, but will also greatly lessen the curculio "sting." 



It is advisable not to add arsenate of lead to Bordeaux mixture, since 

 a chemical change is likely to occur which will injure the foliage; but 

 Paris Green or Scheele's Green can be added to Bordeaux mixture, by 

 regarding the Bordeaux mixture as simply water, and adding to each 

 ore hundred and fifty or one hundred and seventy-five gallons of the 

 Bordeaux mixture, one pound of the Paris Green and three pounds of 

 fresh lime. 



Since the larva of the plum curculio in the apple will not live unless 

 the apples fall by the time the larva are half grown, and as the larva 

 remain in the fallen apples for a week or so before they eat their way out 

 and enter the ground, we have a very vulnerable point in which to fight 

 the insects. To this end, all the fallen apples should be gathered each 

 v/eek and destroyed. This can be done by hand picking, and then burn- 

 ing the apples or feeding them to live stock, or live stock that will eat 

 tlie fallen apples as fast as they drop can be kept in the orchard in order 

 to eat them as fast as they fall. If only one method of fighting the plum 

 curculio in the orchard is to be followed, this method of destroying all 

 vmdfalls at least once a week is by far the most satisfactory. 



We can also take advantage of another weak point in the life history 

 of this insect, viz., the fact that the larva all leave the apples and enter 

 the ground about two inches in order to transform to the pupa stage 

 during the latter half of July and the fore part of August, in which 

 pupa condition the insects are easily killed by any unusual disturbance. 

 Hence, by shallow plowing and thoroughly harrowing the orchard during 

 the middle of July, and then harrowing the first and the fifteenth of 

 August, one will rupture the earthen cells and destroy the great bulk of 

 the pupa in the ground before they have transformed to the adult beetles. 



If poultry are allowed to roam through the orchard, especially while 



