346 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



If you have delermined to secure your fruit it will be well to 

 begin before it is large enough to be injured, for the insect is 

 lying in wait for it, and can frequently be taken before any mis- 

 chief has been done. We have seen a promising crop entirely 

 destroyed in a few days. 



The length of time necessary to carry on this war will vary, 

 but will require more or less attention almost till the time of 

 ripening. If you attack them vigorously from the first, you may 

 have them so much diminished in number in two or three weeks, 

 that tlie labor afterwards will not be so irksome ; and, if your 

 trees shall be so plentiful set with fruit as to be benefited by 

 thinning out, you may, if you choose, permit the few that remain 

 to have a chance to perform the duty they were created for — 

 prevent the trees from overbearing. There will be some risk in 

 this, however, as the curculio and you are not governed by the 

 same motives. She does not estimate the value of fruit by what 

 money it will bring in the market as you do, and, therefore, you 

 must be cautious about trusting it wholly to her management. 



During wet days, and some cold windy days, the curculios are 

 inactive, but when the pleasant weather comes, and especially 

 the very hot days in May and June, how soon they make up for 

 lost time. All insect life is active in proportion to the heat of 

 the weather, and we have sometimes thought, when the safety of 

 a hundred bushels of apricots depended upon the labor of a few 

 hours, when the thermometor stood at 120 in the sunshi)ie, that 

 nothing else on earth could be so invigorated by heat as the cur- 

 culio. 



The business of securing fruit from the curculio is a laborious 

 one, but how in this world can we secure anything else as good 

 without labor ? 



If you have large orchards of apricots or plums, when the soil 

 and climate suit these fruits, the prices they will bring you will 

 justify the expense of protecting them. 



In neighborhoods where the curculios has undisputed posses- 

 sion, as in most parts of this State, the number that can be 

 taken by this jarring process, in the early part of the season, 

 will sometimes be almost incredible, but you Avill soon find the 

 numbers to disappear. 



Those who have no knowledge of entomology will be likely to 

 mistake this little insect for many others, especially the smaller 

 beetles. The worm we find in chestnuts becomes a flying insect 



