108 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27. Art. 2 



man\- peach growers, after a few \ ears in 

 the red, pulled up their trees and aban- 

 doned production. A hope that DDT 

 would control plum curculio faded quick- 

 ly, but BHC became available just in 

 time to save the peach-growing industry. 

 BHC was short-lived as an insecticide 

 for plum curculio control ; it was replaced 

 hv more eltective and less objectionable 

 materials such as chlordane. dieldrin, and 

 parathion. However, it was BHC that 

 saved the day for a number of orchardists. 

 Orchards that could have been bought for 

 a song, and a poor one at that, in the fall 

 of 1946 and spring of 1947 were not for 

 sale in 1948. 



After a century of research by the Nat- 

 ural History Survey and its parent or- 

 ganizations, we find the plum curculio is, 

 for the moment at least. ver\ well under 

 control. Surveys conducted in 32 com- 

 mercial peach orchards for the past 5 years 

 showed that at harvest time less than 1 

 per cent of the fruit was infested or dam- 

 aged by this weevil. 



Other insects of the peach that ha\ e 

 required research attention include the 

 oriental fruit moth, a group of sucking 

 insects responsible for an injury known 

 as catfacing, the peach tree borers, and at 

 least three species of scale insects. For- 

 tunately these, too. are successfully con- 

 trolled by currently available measures. 

 Even so, peach growers insist that the 

 entomologist will have to find more eco- 

 nomical control measures, or the high cost 

 of producing peaches will put the growers 

 out of business. 



The codling moth (mentioned by 

 Walsh as the "Apple-worm"), unques- 

 tionably the No. 1 apple insect in Illinois, 

 apparently arrived in eastern United 

 States from Europe about 1800 and made 

 its first appearance in Illinois about 1850. 

 In 1869, while checking his theory that 

 this insect had been a hitch-hiker in apple 

 barrels, Walsh reportedly found about 

 200 cocoons in a single barrel. The cod- 

 ling moth wasted no time in becoming 

 adapted to its new environment. In the 

 early transactions of the horticultural and 

 agricultural societies and in pioneer farm 

 journals, there are numerous references to 

 the ravages of this insect. For example, in 

 the first issue of Hie Arnericun Kntornol- 

 ogist in September, 1868, we read: 



Jotham Bradbury, residing near Quincy, 111., 

 has an old apple orchard, which many years 

 agti used invariably to produce nothing but 

 wormv and gnarly fruit. A few years ago he 

 plowed up this orchard and seeded it to clover, 

 by way of hog pasture. As soon as the clover 

 had got a sufficient start, he turned in a gang 

 of hogs, and has allowed them the range of his 

 orchard ever since. Two years after the land 

 was plowed the apple trees produced a good 

 crop of fair, smooth fruit, and have continued 

 to bear well ever since (Walsh i' Rile\ 

 1868//: -1-5). 



In the same article, further extolling 

 the value of hogs, we read: 



But the plum curculio and its allies are not 

 the only insects that we can successfully attack 

 through the instrumentality of the hog; neither 

 is stone fruit the only crop that can be pro- 

 tected in this manner. For the last fifteen 

 \ears or so. pip fruit, namely, apples, pears, 

 and quinces, have been annually more or less 

 deteriorated bv the apple worm or larva of the 

 codling moth boring into their cores, and filling 

 their flesh with its loathsome excrement 

 (Walsh & Riley 1868/7:3). 



In addressing the Southern Illinois 

 Fruit Growers Association in 1867, Pres- 

 ident Parker Earle (1868:137) said: 



ihe curculio and the tree borers have been 

 di^cu>sed at length in our former meetings, but 

 the codling moth — which threatens us even 

 greater damage than the curculio — has re- 

 ceived little attention. There is some hope that 

 great promptness and energy may save us from 

 the terrible devastation which this moth has 

 wrought in all the older States, and in the 

 older fruit-growing neighborhoods of Illinois. 

 Its damage to the apple crop of the country 

 each passing year should be reckoned at mil- 

 lions of dollars. From all sections we have the 

 same sad story of "the apples dropping prema- 

 turely" — "the apples mostly wormy" — "the ap- 

 ple crop used up," by the codling worm. 



In many districts of the East where apples 

 were once abundant they now entireh- fail, 

 because of the worms, and they not only 

 threaten the destruction of the apple crop of 

 the country, the whole country, but pears seem 

 equally exposed. In many sections of the West 

 nine-tenths of the pears are reported spoiled 

 by the codling moth. 



The comments of Earle and other early 

 horticultural leaders clearly establish the 

 codling moth as the outstanding pest of 

 apples in Illinois in the third quarter of 

 the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 

 1870 the pasturing of hogs in the or- 

 chards and the use of straw or cloth bands 

 around the tree trunks to trap larvae for 

 later destruction were about the only con- 

 trol measures of established merit. Even 



