F.ntereit at San /dse Poit 0/fice as Second-Class Mail Matter. 



PiihlislictI al 18 South iVlarkcr St.. San Jose. Cal. 



Vdi.umh XIX. NiMiiKH h 



MA lull, llio:; 



Mo.sTHLY, 50 Cents a Year. 



THE HORTICULTURIST 



Recently there was held and de- 

 stroj'ed bj' the Horticultural (Quar- 

 antine officer at .San Francisco J09 

 boxes of fresh fruit — peaches, pears 

 and 1 lums — from Sydney, Auttra- 

 lia. This was done for the reason 

 that the Oueensland fruit fly, so 

 called, and the Mediterranean fruit 

 fly are prevalent in that part of 

 Australia, and it is not desired to 

 take even remote chances of intro- 

 ducing this serious pest into Cali- 

 fornia. These fruit flies, of which 

 there are several species, are per 

 haps the most serious of all the pests 

 which our fruit growers have to 

 fear. Fortunately we have none of 

 them in California yet, nor will have 

 so long as the vigilance of our Ilor- 

 ticularal (Quarantine officer can pre- 

 vent their entrance. The dreaded 

 orange maggot, which has got a 

 foothold in our sister republic, Mex- 

 ico, is one ot these, and there are 

 others which work on apples, cu- 

 cumbers, melons, etc. , on peaches, 

 plums, pears nr olives, and in fact 

 some of them work upon each kind 

 of fruit and some of them upon sev- 

 eral. In parts of Italy olives are so 

 injured by them that it is difllcult 

 to get a single fruit that is not a 

 mass of maggots on the inside. In 

 Mexico the oranges are a reeking 

 mass of crawling maggots, and in 

 Hawaii a very large percentage of 

 the melon and cucumber crop is ren- 

 dered worthless from the attacks of 

 one of these fruit flies. Official re- 

 ports from Western Australia and 

 other states of that country state 

 that the Queensland and Mediterr- 

 anean fruit flies have obtained such 



A Terrible Fruit Pest 



a hold there that fruit growing is 

 practically at an end. There being 

 hardh' a specimen of fruit of any 

 kind that is not filled with the dis- 

 gusting maggots of these flies So 

 .serious,' in fact, are these pests, that 

 Mr. George Compere, now ento- 

 mologist for West Australia, has 

 been sent on a mission the world 

 over to discover the home of these 

 pests and their natural enemies, if 

 he can. 



This group of inserts is the most 

 disgusting of any that can attack 

 our fruits. They belong to the or- 

 der Diptera, or two-winged insects, 

 as do the hor.se fly, the meat fly, 

 and the dung fly, which they much 

 resemble. kW this class of flies are 

 produced from maggots, and these 

 are usually produced, not singly, as 

 is the case with many insects, the 

 codlin moth for instance, but in 

 masses, as is the case of the mag- 

 gots of the meat fly or blue bottle. 

 The females of all the fruit flies lay 

 their eggs in the ripening fiuit, and 

 lay a large number in each place. 

 This she does by piercing a very 

 minute hole through the skin, and 

 laying the eggs all in a bunch. In 

 a very short time the.se eggs hatch 

 out into little maggots and begin to 

 eat the fruit, increasing steadily in 

 size, until the mass of the fruit be- 

 neath the skin becomes a putrid, 

 disgusting, crawling mass. Unless 

 destroyed the maggots drop to the 

 ground when fully grown, form into 

 a pupae and develop another gen- 

 eration of flies to go through the 

 .same cycle. It is impossible to 

 reach them by any artificial means, 



such as spraying or fumigating, for 

 they are imbedded in the solid meat 

 of the fruit, and the only way to de- 

 stroy them is to pick and destroy 

 every specimen of i'ruit. The cod- 

 lin moth in our apples is one of the 

 most serious pests ever brought in- 

 to this State. Here we have but 

 one or rarely two worms in one 

 fruit. The eggs are laid on the out- 

 side of the apple, and we can de- 

 stroy a large part of them with poi- 

 son. But with this fly the eggs are 

 laid when the fruit is ripening, a 

 mass is laid in each fruit, and they 

 are laid inside the fruit, where no 

 paris green or anything else will 

 reach them. 



We have had some pretty serious 

 pests brought into the State in 

 former years, but taken all together 

 they will not compare in destruc- 

 tiveness with this one fl\-, for if it 

 once obtained a foothold there 

 would be practically an end to the 

 great horticultural industry which 

 now brings $180,000,000 yearly in- 

 to our State. It is to be hoped that 

 our Horticultural Quarantine officer 

 may succeed in keeping this terri- 

 ble pestout of California for all time. 



Tree Planting' 



Tree planting season is now well 

 advanced, and reports which have 

 reached Tree and Vine from dif- 

 ferent parts of the State are to the 

 effect that while not so heavy as in 

 some former years, it has still been 

 very heavy and there has been a 

 good demand for nursery stock. 

 Apples and peaches seem to be much 

 in favor, and the largest acreage of 



