68 



N.S. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Laborious as this method is, two or three years of careful picking up 

 all drops will effectively control the pest. However, a great deal of time 

 must be expended and if there are simpler and more efficient ways they 

 would be more practicable for the fruit growers. 



Cultural Methods and Chickens. 



Many insects are combatted with ordinary cultural practices, such 

 as fall plowing, constant cultivation and short rotations, and, according- 

 ly, experiments were carried on to determine whether the apple maggot 

 could be controlled in a similar manner. 



One hundred pupae were placed in each of several of our special 

 rearing boxes and buried at a depth of about 2 inches. These cages were 

 used to work out the effect in each case, of: — Constant stirring of the 

 soil; packing the surface; burying of pupae at different depths, and the 

 placing of heavy sods over the earth. The results are seen in Table VII.: 



TABLE VII. 

 EFFECT OF CULTURAL METHODS ON PUPAE. 



Cultivation does not seem to have much effect. In these boxes, the 

 soil was stirred every few days to a depth of about two inches, and al- 

 though many pupae were doubtless exposed, the emergence from those 

 cages is not any lower than that from the check cages. The packing of 

 the soil when it was moist reduced the number of flies, since the crust 

 which was formed no doubt prevented some from working their way 

 through. The flies even struggled up from a depth of 6 inches in undi- 

 minished numbers, so it is quite evident that plowing them under to that 



