PREMIUMS FOR REMEDIES, 167 
11. Swine and poultry, running daily among the trees, during the fruit season, as a 
permanent annual practice, will ultimately drive away or destroy the insect. The 
poultry, however, are not alone sufficient. Swine are the best exterminators, by 
destroying the larvie of the insect in the fruit as it falls. The insect will avoid places 
unfavorable to the entrance of its young into the ground. 
Captain Bissell said he had tried horse manure and salt without any effect. He 
was inclined to try the swine. 
General Milburn said that a Mr. Price, of this county, kept off the insects by tying 
a band of sheep’s wool around his plum trees. 
Mr. Turner said that a withe around the tree, kept moist with tar, had proved 
ineffectual with him. 
Mr. Clark said that the insect would not attack the fruit upon a tree standing in a 
frequented walk. 
The foregoing will indicate the general trend of the early remedial 
suggestions. In the literature on the subject there is much testimony 
in favor of pasturing orchards with hogs and sheep, and allowing 
fowls to run in them, and of paving under the trees. Jarring, although 
recommended and practiced to a certain extent by 1830, apparently 
did not come into general use until considerably later. The develop- 
ment of this method forms an interesting chapter in the evolution of 
remedies for the curculio, but may be considered only briefly (p. 168). 
PREMIUMS FOR REMEDIES FOR THE CURCULIO. 
Premiums have often been offered for the discovery of a suitable 
method of control of an injurious insect, and the plum curculio is no 
exception. The amounts of the awards, however, actually offered 
were small as compared with the amounts offered for other species, 
notably the cotton boll weevil, for which a premium of $50,000 was 
offered by the State of Texas. The first suggestion for an award for 
a remedy for the control of the curculio seems to have been made about 
1830. At this time a lady of New Jersey started a movement to raise 
$2,000 by subseription, and the matter was considered by the Penn- 
sylvania, the New York, and the Massachusetts Horticultural Socie- 
ties, the last organization at least recommending that $200 be appro- 
priated by the society for this purpose.t| The same society, in 1842, 
offered a premium of $100 for a successful remedy for the cureulio, 
which amount was raised to $200 by additional subscriptions. There 
were several contestants for this latter premium, though no method 
of control presented particularly warranted the giving of the award. 
A paper highly commended and published in the proceedings of the 
society for 1843 was prepared in this connection by Dr. Joel Burnett. 
As stated in the Genesee Farmer for 1856 (p. 192) a reward of $500 
was offered by the Kentucky Horticultural Society for an effectual 
remedy which would not be so costly and troublesome as to prevent 
its general employment. 
1 History Massachusetts Horticultural Society, p. 257. 
