' 6 SECOND REPORT OV THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Can you tell me also, what causes the fungoid growth upon the pieces 

 of the peach-tree sent ? 



In addition to the most effectual means of destroying the peach-tree 

 borer, ^£grria exitiosa Say, viz., that of digging them out of their bur- 

 rows which is regarded by many peach growers as not a laborious 

 or difificult operation — the application of hot water to the base of the 

 tree has been recommended, and in many cases has proved quite suc- 

 cessful. 



Mounding to prevent the peach-tree borer. — The trees of an orchard 

 having been once thoroughly " wormed," preventive measures should 

 be resorted to, that they may not be restocked with the borers. There 

 is good evidence that this is practicable in all but quite young trees by 

 the method known as /nounding. It is simply the throwing up around 

 the base of the tree, at any time before the parent moths are abroad for 

 the deposit of their eggs (usually in the month of July), a mound of 

 earth of about a foot in height, pressed by the foot closely to the tree. 

 In the following years a few inches of earth may be added annually. 

 By this means, the roots of the tree where they are given off from the 

 trunk, are placed out of reach of the insect. The mounding is believed 

 also to have a beneficial influence on the health of the trees in prolong- 

 ing their period of bearing and exempting them from disease. Several 

 extensive peach growers claim for this method that it has given them 

 entire exemption from the ravages of the borer, at the cost of a very 

 little labor — one man being able to mound fifty trees in a day. A 

 mound of ashes might prove tjuite as effectual as one of earth. 



Coal-oil application not safe. — • The application of coal-oil to the trunk 

 of the tree, which is suggested, would be a hazardous experiment, un- 

 less first tried upon a tree or two, for it has been known not unfrequently 

 to kill the trees that have been treated with it. At certain seasons of 

 the year, coal-oil has been applied to the bark of trees for killing scale 

 insects, with scarcely any harm resulting from its use. 



Dipterous larva;. — The " fine, white, thread-like worms," associated 

 with the borers in their burrows, are the larvae of some species of fly, 

 which have not, so far as we know, been carried to their final stage. 

 They are harmless scavengers, as they feed upon the exuding sap and 

 gummy matter. Some of the smaller myriapods, or hundred-legged 

 worms also frequent the decayed bark and wood of the injured peach- 

 trees. The earth-worms observed, as supposed, are not injurious. 



The curculio in. the peach. — " The worm found in the peach and 

 caused by the curculio," is very unlike the peach-tree borer, it being 

 the larva of a beetle, Conotrachelus nenuphar (Herbst), appearing as a 

 yellowish-white footless grub, with a yellow head and two pale lateral 



