THE KANSAS PEACH. 69 



THE PEACH TWIG-BORER. 



(Anarsia liueatella Zell.) 

 From Farmers' Bulletin No. 80 of the United States Department of Agriculture. 



This insect is of European origin, but has been known to occur in 

 the United States since 18G0. It has been very injurious at times to 

 peach trees in the peach-growing sections of the East ; notably in 

 Maryland; Delaware, and Virginia, also in New Jersey and New York, 

 and more recently in West Virginia. In California and Oregon, and 

 elsewhere on the Pacific slope, its injuries have taken a wider range, 

 including damage to the apricot, almond, nectarine, prune, pear, and 

 perhaps other fruit-trees, in addition to the peach. 



In California it is listed as one of the three or four worst insect 

 pests. In Washington as many as 100 larvae, or instances of damage 

 to as many twigs, have been counted on a single tree. In Oregon 

 this insect is stated to be next to the peach-tree borer in the amount 

 of damage it occasions, particularly in the Willamette valley. In 

 western Colorado it is very destructive to peach, plum, apricot, and 

 almond. 



The injury occasioned by this insect is limited almost exclusively 

 to the work of hibernating larvfie during the latter part of April and 

 first of May, when they bore into the shoots of new leaves, killing the 

 growing terminals and preventing the development of the branch, 

 although sometimes a whorl of living leaves may remain at the base. 

 Much of the new growth of the tree is often killed, in many instances 

 the branches remaining with scarcely a bud or shoot which has not 

 been thus destroyed. This necessarily results in greatly checking the 

 vigor and fruiting cai^acity of the tree, and causes an irregular and 

 knotty growth. 



The summer broods of larvae feed beneath the bark or in the fruit 

 stems, occasionally, when nearly full grown, boring into the fruit ; but 

 such damage is not ordinarily noticed and is slight as compared with 

 the injury occasioned by the first or hibernating brood of larvae. 



RECENT STUDIES OF THE INSECT. 



Up to comparatively recent years the knowledge of this insect has 

 been practically confined to its injury to peach twigs, either in termi- 

 nals before the trees leaf out in the spring, a rare form of attack, or 

 in the young shoots — the usual and destructive habit — and later and 

 more rarely in the ripening fruit. 



The peach twig-borer is apparently an old world species, and prob- 

 ably a very ancient enemy of the peach, with little doubt coming 

 wdth this fruit from western Asia. It was described in Europe in 



