MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 
The worm, or caterpillar, when young, is of a whitish color, with 
a black head and black, shield-like covering on the top of the first 
segment, but when full grown is changed to a flesh color, or quite — 
pinkish tint, especially on the back, while the head and first seg- 
ment become more of a brown color. 
Each segment has eight little spines, out of which grow very 
minute hairs. Being now full grown, the worm leaves the apple 
and selects some crack or crevice, spins its little house, and in three 
er four days changes to a crysalis, and in ten weeks comes out the 
perfect and beautiful moth. Of course the appearance of the moth 
varies with the latitude and the work it has before it. As it has 
not been ascertained as whether here the insect is two-brooded, the 
time that it remains in the crysalis state cannot be accurately fixed. 
There have been many devices used for the destruction of this 
pest, the most important of which is the band of hay, straw or rags 
laid in the forks or tied around the limbs and trunks of the trees. 
It has many natural enemies. 
I also desire to call the attention of the Society to the Curculio 
—or the Little Turk, as State Entomologist of Missouri, C. V. 
Riley, calls him. From his name, to speak scientifically, Conotra- 
chelus nenuphar, you are at liberty to call him Turk or Hottentot, 
as you like, it will make no difference to him, for he will go for your 
plums the best he knows how every time. 
This insect belongs to the great order Coleoptera, of the tribe 
Curculionidae, thus showing his name islegion. Should I undertake 
to tell you of this pestiferous fellow, and you were to allow me the 
time, there would be no other subject treated of at this meeting. 
My friend Riley, of whom Missouri should feel proud, gives twenty- 
four reasons why this apparently insignificant insect ‘* should be 
dreaded as much as an invasion of Arabs; among which reasons he 
says the plum curculios are a most unmitigated nuisance, and though 
a most beautiful object under the microscope, the fruit growers of 
the United States, if they had their own way about the matter, 
would wish them swept from off the face of the earth, at the risk 
even of interfering with the harmony of nature. From one hun- 
dred peach trees, Parker Earl captured, in six days, six thousand 
five hundred curculios.” 
I will not trespass upon your time by going into the details of 
the birth, growth, maturity, mischief and death of this insect. Any 
one, the most casual observer, can see the imago at work with its 
elephant-shaped nose making the incision crescent-shaped—then 
presto depositing an egg—then presio again with its snout pushing 
the egg quite under the skin—and gluing up the wound—then off 
for the next plum, &c., &c. 
From the egg thus carefully stowed away under the cuticle of the 
plum, there soon hatches out a little grub or maggot, which works 
around and around, when, in course of time, he growing all the 
while, and the fruit growing also, the mischief is done, the fruit 
falls to the ground, and in due time, being full fed, the larva leaves 
the plum and makes its way into the ground, changes his personal 
appearance very much, and during the next June is ready to commence 
operations again. And here I agree with Prof. Riley, that the plum 
