NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE CURCULIO. 



outset that I am hors du combat in all. I have made no impression, ■whatever, upon the 

 grand rascal. I commenced my operations in the spring, by mixing pulverised cobalt in 

 honey and water, and hanging it in cups in the trees, and by spreading some of it on the 

 branches, and sometimes on the fruit, and I cannot say that I ever caught three curculios 

 in all my cups, nor that one ever tasted that I spread upon the trunk or limbs. But I can 

 say, if I did not kill the curculios, I killed all the trees upon which T put it to any extent, 

 so they will not be tormented any more. I next put a ring of tar and grease around the 

 trunks of some others, so as to stick them fast if they attempted to crawl up th^ trunk. 

 Never did one put his foot in it, that I could discover. Next I caught some of thjem on a 

 cloth, by shaking the trees, and placed them in bottles, and fed them on green plums, 

 some dipped in a decoction of tobacco, some in that of elder-bark and leaves, ot|iers in 

 penny-royal, and so on — all which they ate with a relish, as well as deposited, their eggs 

 in them. .,, -,, .; 



In short, everything that I have tried has failed to arrest them in .their wicked- 

 edness, except shaking them from the trees, which is rather a chinquapin business, as we 

 say out here. : I have a fine nectarine tree standing near the kitchen door, under which the 

 little niggers play and dance from morning till night, but not one nectarine has ever ri- 

 pened upon it yet, nor do I think ever will, until some other reraed} than those now 

 known, is found. The only reason why trees growing over brick walks, and near doors, 

 have succeeded at times, is from the fiict that the insect is very shy. I have caught them 

 in the act of puncturing the fruit, and on endeavoring to pick them off, they would roll 

 themselves up and drop off like a 'possum. 



All that promises to be of any service, that I am able to conceive of, is to destroy the 

 j^oung fruit as fast as it falls from the trees; and that is a forlorn hope here, where peach 

 trees grow almost indigenously. The fruit should be gathered up and destroyed at least 

 once every day, as the larvae soon leaves it after it f\\lls to the ground. Keeping poultry 

 amongst the trees does no good, as the worm, immediately on leaving the fiuit, crawls 

 underneath it, and there burrows in the earth. [But the poultry "makes a business" of 

 devouring the insect the moment it emerges, and therefore, where there are plenty' of chick- 

 ens — there are plenty of plunas. Ed.] Hogs will doubtless be of much service, if per- 

 mitted to run amongst the trees, but the fruit that first falls is so small that much of it 

 is not eaten by them, and besides, some of the plums do not fall at all — but on the larvae 

 leaving them, dry up and remain upon the tree during the entire season. We encourage 

 and protect the birds all we can about the orchard, (the Jay excepted,) who charges so 

 much for his services that we cannot afford to tolerate him, for when our grapes ripen he 

 claims the whole: so you will perceive all is failure thus far with your humble servant. 

 I have thought it best to give you a history of all my failures, that others may not travel 

 over the same ground, and trust that they will do the same with theirs; and I have no 

 doubt but that perseverance will yet discover a remedy or specific cure for this pest. 



We have two other varieties of this inseet here, which I intended to have sent you, but 

 thej' have accidentally escaped. One is quite small, and the other three or four times the 

 size of the common kind. Should I be able to get hold of either of them again this sea- 

 son, I will send them. J. Van Buren. 



Clarksviile, Ga., July 15, 1851. 



