168 THE PLUM CURCULIO. 
Ten years later (1865) a gentleman from Philadelphia, writing in 
the Country Gentleman (p. 270), suggested a reward of $50,000 for 
a method of curculio control, though no action appears to have 
resulted from his suggestion. 
A somewhat different plan of securing the subjugation of the cur- 
culio was adopted by the Fruit Growers’ Association of Ontario. In 
their list of prizes for 1870 (p. 72) is the following: 
To any person sending to William Saunders, esq., London, transportation prepaid, 
2,000 plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar), the sum of $25, or sending 1,000 the 
sum of $10, or sending 500 the sum of $5. 
As a result of this offer numerous fruit growers made sendings of 
plum curculio during the year, the total reaching 13,653, the largest 
number being sent in by any one person being 2,280, jarred from 20 
plum trees, 10 English cherry, and 30 peach trees, obtained for the 
most part from the plum trees. 
The year following a reward was again offered, but the amount to 
be paid reduced. Thus, for 5,000 curculio, $20; for 3,000, $10; and 
for 2,000, $5. Asstated in Mr. Saunders’s report to the association for 
1871, the number of beetles received was notably less than during the 
year previous, supposedly on account of the reduction in price, no 
award being made for a less number than 2,000 beetles. 
THE RANSOM CHIP PROCESS. 
Considerable interest was aroused in the so-called Ransom chip 
process proposed by W. B. Ransom, of St. Joseph, Mich., in 1870, the 
discovery of which was announced in an extra of the St. Joseph 
Herald. The proposed method is reviewed at length in the American 
Entomologist for June, 1870 (p. 225), by Dr. Riley, who points out 
that the process had been previously proposed by Mrs. H. Wier, of 
Johnsonville, N. Y., in the Rural New Yorker of January 28, 1865. 
The plan consisted in first taking from under the trees all trash, clear- 
ing and packing the soil for a couple of feet around the collar of the 
tree and, second, in placing pieces of bark, chips, small stones, ete., 
close to the trunk of the tree, for hiding places for the beetles, from 
which they were to be regularly collected and destroyed. 
The method was compared with jarring by Dr. E. S. Hull? during 
the period May 29 to June 2, with the result that by the chip process 
13 beetles were taken (including 7 apple curculio), whereas by jarring 
309 were captured. 
JARRING FOR THE CURCULIO. 
Jarring, or shaking, as the practice is very generally designated 
in the earlier literature, was recommended at a very early date. Its 
value rests upon the habit which the beetles have of folding their 
legs and falling to the ground when disturbed. 
1 Trans. Ill. Hort. Soc., 1870, p. 228. 
