JARRING FOR THE CURCULIO. 169 
A suggestion as to the worth of the practice is found in the Bartram- 
Collinson correspondence in 1746 (p. 157). Jarring was more or less 
in vogue at the beginning of the last century. In Dr. Tilton’s article, 
published in 1804 (p. 157), he refers to the successful experience in 
jarring of a gentleman living near Baltimore. Te also records results 
obtained by Col. 'T. Forest, of Germantown, who, having a fine plum 
tree near his pump, tied a rope from the tree to the pump handle so 
that the tree was gently agitated every time there was occasion to 
pump water. The consequence was that the fruit on this tree was 
preserved in the greatest perfection. 
The habit of the curculio to fall to the ground or to play possum 
when disturbed is commented on in the American Farmer for July 17, 
1829, namely: 
When the branch on which it is at work is shaken with some little violence, it drops 
to the earth but makes no attempt to hide. It immediately contracts itself into a 
small lump very much resembling a grain of small black gravel, and thus it evades 
generally the closest inspection. 
Mr. David Thomas was perhaps one of the first fruit growers to 
exploit the method of jarring, and he occasionally published accounts 
of his success, which doubtless greatly hastened its more general 
use. Writing in the New England Farmer for 1831 (p. 413), he says: 
We have lately discovered that much fruit has been punctured by the curculio, and 
we have found it necessary to resort to the method which I proposed in the New York 
Farmer, Vol. III, No.3. By spreading sheets and jarring the trees we have destroyed 
more than 300 of these insects within the last 24 hours, and have only to regret that 
this work has been so long delayed. 
Further along in the article he adds: 
Before closing this comment I wish to express my entire confidence in the method 
which we now employ for destroying this insect; and again recommend it to those 
whose fruit trees stand in inclosures from which geese and pigs must necessarily be 
excluded. Diligent attention to this business night and morning for a short period, 
though it may not destroy the whole colony, will secure a sufficiency of fruit, and 
we ought to remember that the labors of next year may be greatly lessened by gathering 
and destroying in the present season the damaged fruit as it falls. 
An improvement in the method of dislodging the beetles was hit 
upon a year later, as described by Mr. Thomas in the Genesee Farmer 
for 1832 (p. 185). He states: 
Not three days ago I saw that many plums were punctured and began to suspect that 
shaking the trees was not sufficient. Under a tree in the remote part of the fruit 
garden, having spread the sheets, I therefore made the following experiment: On 
shaking it well J caught 5 curculios; on jarring it with the hand I caught 12 more; 
and on striking it with a stone 8 more dropped on the sheets. I was now convinced 
that I had been in an error, and calling in the necessary assistance and using a hammer 
to jar the tree violently, we caught within less than one hour more than 260 of these 
insects 
