34 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT 0? 



cribed above, but when the fruit is ripe they have a far more perni- 

 cious effect, for they generally cause the fruit to rot. It is now a well 

 established fact that the common Plum Ourculio causes the dreaded 

 rot in peaches, plums, etc., to spread at a fearful rate by the punctures 

 and gougings which it makes on the ripening fruit; and that where 

 this predisposing influence is guarded against, such rot is generally 

 confined to comparative narrow limits or does not occur at all. Many 

 varieties of apples are disposed to rot in a similar manner, and to fall 

 from the tree just as they are ripening. This rot in apples, as may be 

 seen from the transactions of our State Horticultural Society, was 

 very prevalent last fall — the Kawles Janet being especially predis- 

 posed to it — and there can be no doubt but that the punctures and 

 gnawings of the little Turk, combined with those of the Apple Cur- 

 culio are likewise the pricipal agents in producing it; for I have over 

 and over again noticed the rot to spread in a circle from these punc- 

 tures, not only on hanging fruit but just as invariably upon fruit 

 punctured after it was plucked. Whether we believe that the fungus 

 growths, often noticeable on such rotting fruit, are the direct result of 

 the punctures, or that the latter only act indirectly by furnishing a 

 proper nidus for the infectious fungus-spores which are supposed to 

 be ever floating in the atmosphere, is a question which I shall not 

 now stop to consider, though I have my own views which are some- 

 what heterodox. In either case, the Ourculios are just as much to 

 blame, and this should be an additional incentive to a general war- 

 fare upon them. Judge A. M.Brown, of Villa Ridge, has noticed that 

 •some varieties of apples are much more subject to rot and also more 

 subject to the attacks of Curculios than others,* and it is to be hoped 

 that he will make further observations and give us a reliable list of 

 such varieties, and that other fruit-growers will do the same. 



THE SEASON OF THE YEAR DURING WHICH IT WORKS. 



The beetles come from their winter quarters and begin to work on 

 the fruit at about the same time as does the Plum Curculio — if any- 

 thing, a little later. They have generally got fully to work, and larvae 

 may be found already hatched by the first of June, and they may be 

 found in the fruit, in one stage or another, all along through the 

 months of June and July and the greater part of August. 



REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 



Notwithstanding we have had reports, published in the columns of 

 our agricultural papers, of the relative number of Apple and Plum Cur- 

 culios captured from peach trees by jarring with the Curculio-catch- 

 er, I am fully convinced that such reports were not based on facts, and 

 that we may never expect to subdue this insect by the jarring pro- 

 cess. It is not as timid or as much inclined to drop as the Plum Our- 



frfirairie Farmer, January 28, 1871. w 



