436 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Therefore, all such diseased trees should be promptly destroyed. 

 The larvae of the plum tree borer and also of the flat head apple 

 tree borer and the peach tree borer, often do considerable damage 

 in plum orchards by gnawing the inner bark and new wood of the 

 tree. The tree should be examined every autumn and again in the 

 spring, and all borers dug out with a sharp pointed knife. In order 

 to find them readily the soil should be drawn away from around 

 che trees, but it must be replaced lest the trees receive injury from 

 the winter. Under all circumstances the larvae should be destroyed, 

 and that will generally prove sufficient, but in localities where they 

 are very troublesome it will prove still more effective to apply 

 some hand wash that will prevent the deposition of the eggs of the 

 perfect female insect. This is, best done about the first of July. 

 One of the best washes is made by thinning down soft soap to the 

 consistency of thick paint and adding a tablespoonful of crude car- 

 bolic acid to a gallon of the wash. 



The length of this paper permits no more than a brief description 

 and life history of the curculio, which has long been so great a 

 dread to the plum grower. The insects appear about the time the 

 trees are in blossom, or a little before, and as soon as the fruit is 

 formed deposit one or more eggs in each. The eggs generally 

 hatch in four to seven days, the larvse being small, white grubs. 

 They reach full size in four or five weeks, and after full grown 

 emerge from the fruit and enter the ground to the depth of several 

 inches, where they change to pupae and in the course of six weeks 

 become perfect insects or fully developed beetles. In this form 

 they pass the winter hidden under the rough bark or other cover 

 and come out in the spring ready for work. Frequent cultivation 

 at the time they are entering the ground destroys many of them. 

 If hogs can have access to the orchard to devour the fallen fruit 

 many more are destroyed, and, in addition, jarring the trees and 

 catching them on sheets, and burning or scalding is the most 

 effectual of all remedies. Spraying with Paris green or London 

 purple is strongly recommended by some parties. If spraying is 

 done, the first should be as soon as the blossoms fall and repeated 

 about twice a week or ten days apart. 



In packing apples, be sure that it is done in such a way as to keep 

 the apples firm in the barrel. 



Picking and Marketing Plums. — I use sheets about twenty feet 

 in diameter, which I spread under the trees in the morning, then by 

 a few vigorous shakes of the tree the ripe plums fall. Now by rais- 

 ing the outer edges of sheet, the fruit is gathered in the centeri 

 where it is easily and quickly picked up into baskets. For market- 

 ing I use new, clean peck or one-half bushel baskets. Always have 

 your packages neat and of uniform size. My own experience j ustifies 

 me in believing that an enterprising person, not too far from market, 

 may make a fair and very possibly a large profit from growing 

 plums. 



