N.S. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 54 



THE APPLE MAGGOT IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



By C. A. Good, Assistant Provincial Entomologist. 



TS this apple pest on the increase in our province, and is it to be an m- 

 ■** sect which every fruit grower will have to contend with eventually? 

 Are there any practicable means for controlling it in those orchards already 

 infested? With these main questions guiding us, we carried on, during 

 the summer of 1915, experimental work relative to the insect's life his- 

 tory and means of control; and altho the results of the latter are very 

 encouraging, only after another season's work can definite conclusions be 

 made. 



The apple maggot is generally supposed to be a native of North Am- 

 erica, having originally bred in the fruit of the hawthorn. This plant it 

 now infests to a greater or less degree in the several districts in which the 

 pest has been found, but it has extended the scope of its activities,so that 

 both wild and cultivated apples are attacked. Crab-apples also are 

 frequently badly infested. Quite recently it has been found working in 

 the blueberries of Maine, but investigation in this province failed to lo- 

 cate any of the insects in our blueberry barrens. 



Nature of Injury. 



As the eggs are deposited under the skin of the apple and as the lar- 

 vae only leave the fruit to pupate in the soil, the maggots hence, spend 

 their entire stage of development within the fruit. Beginning as soon as 

 hatched, they burrow through the flesh in all directions, the injured tis- 

 sue turning brown. At first these burrowings are scarcely distinguishable, 

 but as the maggots develop the faint brown streaks change to distinct 

 tunnels and. as the fruit matures and the tunnels coalesce, the whole 

 centre of the apple is eventually a rotten mass. 



Fig. 1. Apple, cut in half, showing work of the Maggot. 



Infested apples fall prematurely, and frequently the whole crop of 

 a variety such as the Gravenstein or Bough Sweet, drops to the ground. 

 Although they may be apparently sound when picked, and sold, they will 



