132 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



species of insects may be enumerated as pests of the plum and many more 

 can be counted as occasional parasites on one or another of the species. 

 Of the formidable pests the plum curculio is probably the most troublesome. 

 The plum curculio ' (Conotrachelus nenuphar Herbst) is a rough, grayish 

 snout -beetle somewhat less than a quarter of an inch in length, an insect 

 so familiar to fruit-growers as hardly to need a description. The female 

 beetle pierces the skin of the yoving plums and places an egg in the pimcture. 

 About this cavity she gouges out a crescent -shaped trench, the pimctiore 

 and trench making the " star and crescent " of the Ottoman Empire, hence 

 the common name of the beetle, " The Little Turk." The egg-laying 

 process may be repeated in a number of fruits and from each egg a larva 

 hatches within a week and burrows to the stone, making a wormy fruit. 

 Most of the infested plums drop. In years past plum-growers relied upon 

 jarring the beetles from the trees in the early morning, but the treatment 

 was too expensive, and poisoning with an arsenate is now the chief means 

 of combating the pest. Rubbish and vegetation offer hiding places for 

 the insects and hence cultivated orchards are more free from curculio. Thin 

 skinned varieties are damaged most by the insect but there are no " cur- 

 culio -proof " plums. 



A larger snout -beetle than the curculio, the plum gouger ' (Anthon- 

 omus scntellaris LeConte), occasionally does much damage to plums. 

 The work of the gouger may be told from that of the curculio by the 

 absence of the crescent cut about the puncture made for the egg, and 

 from the fact that the larvae of this pest chiefly infest the stone and those 

 of the other insect the flesh of the plum. The remedies are the same 

 for the two insects though the gouger is more easily destroyed. 



Among the several borers which are more or less destructive to species 

 of Rosaceae only the peach borer ^ {Sanninoidea exitiosa Say.) may be 

 counted as a troublesome pest of the plum. The larvae of this insect are 

 frequently to be found in both wild and cultivated plum trees and must 

 be combated in nearly all plum orchards east of the Rocky Mountains. 

 The prevention of the work of the borer is best accomplished by thorough 

 cultivation, the use of coverings of tar and poisonous washes and mounding 

 the trees. Destruction is effectively carried out only by digging out the 

 borer with knife or wire. The lesser peach borer ♦ {Sesia pictipes Grote 



■Riley, C. V. An. Rpt. State Entomol. Mo. 1:50-56. 1869; 3:11-29. 1871. 



'Ibid. 3:39-42. 1871. 



' Beutenmtiller, W. Sesiidae of America, etc. 266-271. 1901. 



*Ibid. 291-292. 1901. 



