266 KEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



When any insect pest becomes well established in any section of the 

 country, complete eradication becomes impossible. The question of fight- 

 ing it, then, resolves itself into a question of reducing its numbers suf- 

 ficiently to protect the particular crop or crops affected. The problem 

 of the entomologist is not, as is sometimes thought, how can this pest 

 be exterminated, but how can it be checked? 



The most efficient work can be done only when people get together 

 and adopt proper and uniform methods of control. The necessity for 

 cooperation in this work brought about the passage of a Pest District 

 law by the last legislature. Under this law it is now possible to organize 

 in a certain district, not to exceed thirty-six miles square, and with the 

 aid of the county and district inspectors and the state entomologist, to 

 adopt proper and uniform methods of control for any particular pest 

 throughout the district. This law should be very advantageous in certain 

 sections where grasshoppers are bad, and, in fact, in sections where 

 orcharding is generally practiced, and codling moth, San Jose scale, or 

 other pests are serious. 



It is hoped that another season will see some of the districts in 

 operation. The writer will be glad to give full particulars in regard to 

 the organization and support of such districts. 



THE HYGIENE OF APPLES. 

 Written for Green's Fruit Grower by Myron T. BIy, Rochester, N. Y. 



A good friend was lately bemoaning the state of his health. Among 

 other evil things he had an excess of uric acid — one of our inodern 

 banes, but perhaps no less a bane for all that. I suggested that he eat 

 apples. He had heard, without questioning the authenticity of his in- 

 formation, that apples would render more acid an already acid stomach. 

 Any way they did not agree with him. And so it happened that we came 

 to a discussion of the hygiene of apples. Briefly stated we went through 

 the following course of reasoning: 



A green apple is a sour and indigestible thing because it is brim- 

 ming full of raw starch and citric and malic acids. Moreover, it has a 

 high percentage of fiber content — cellulose, the chemist might call it. 

 The gastric juices of the stomach can not digest raw starch unless 

 saliva is thoroughly incorporated with it in the process of mastication, 

 and the very best gastric juice has hard work digesting cellulose. But 

 the process of ripening on the tree is a process in which the amount of 

 cellulose is reduced or converted into plain water and the starch con- 

 verted into sugar. It is done by the action of sunshine and atmosphere 

 working in conjunction with the live contents of the apple. A ripening 

 apple is a living thing, drawing nourishment not only from its parent 

 tree, but from sunshine and atmospheric elements. 



Our first conclusion then is this: The weak stomached person 

 should eat only those apples which have reached the flower of maturity 



