A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 



117 



ENEMIES OF THE PECAN. 

 From Nut Culture in the United States, by the Department of Agriculture. 



The principal enemies of the Pecan tree, in order of their importance, are 

 exposure to light, water-soaked soil, insects, vermin, and disease. A corres- 

 pondent in Texas says the Guadalupe river bottom is full of Pecan trees of all 

 ages and in all stages of destruction, by an excess of water backed up into the 

 soil, occasioned by the choking of the drainage channels. The wood lice get 

 into young trees under the forks of the roots, and gradually check or destroy 

 their growth. Caterpillars consume their foliage at times to such an extent as 

 to destroy the crop. Worms get into the young fruit and the ' ' Sawyer ' ' beetle 

 cuts off trees and branches of considerable size. All of these pests, as well as 

 crows and vermin and Pecan diseases, are more abundant in the bottoms than 

 the uplands. After the nuts are formed, and while their stems are still tender, 

 an undescribed insect is reported in Texas as cutting large quantities from the 

 trees. So far as is yet determined, the nutlets do not contain the larvae of this 

 insect ; nor are the young nuts eaten, but the stems are cut and the nuts fall 

 to the ground. In the latter part of May of some years, the terminal buds and 

 tender growth of nursery stock and orchard trees are much damaged in that 

 State by a " minute worm," which is thought by growers to be the larvae of a 

 fly which infests the trees. These flies are in turn kept in check by numerous 

 small spiders which prey upon them. 



Experimenters report that so far as they have tried the arsenical poisons 

 they seem to damage Pecan trees. In California, Pecan trees have been 

 attacked and greatly damaged by the cotton cushion scale of the Orange, but 

 the Australian ladybird, imported for destroying the Orange insect, has cleaned 

 up the Pecan trees as perfectly as it saved the Orange trees. 



For the various caterpillars, web-worms, &c., a spraying of Paris green or 

 London purple is recommended, and for the twig-girdlers gather and burn the 

 twigs as they fall. 



Varieties ' rlie fH w i n g are among the varieties described in 



" Nut Culture in the United States. " 



Centennial. From Richard 

 Frotscher, New Orleans, La. 

 A large, oblong nut; thickness 

 of shell medium; kernel plump, 

 oily, good. 



Faust. From O. D. Faust, Bamberg, S. C. A long, quite large nut; 

 valuable. 



