STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



If we knew the cause it might lead to a remedy. Years ago, when 

 the soil was new, this disease was unknown. May it not be that 

 some element that the soil then contained has become exhausted, 

 and if we could learn what it was, by supplying it, might we not 

 prevent the disease? Perhaps this may be worth looking into b}' 

 some who have the means and time to experiment in this direction. 



CURCULIO. 



This is an insect about five-sixteenths of an inch long, of a brown 

 color with spots of white, yellow and black. They appear as soon as 

 the fruit forms, and continue until abDul the middle of August. It 

 is supposed to fly from the ground. They puncture the plum and lay 

 an egg in the wound. The gum oozes out, the egg hatches, the 

 worm eats into the fruit which falls from the tree, usually before it 

 is half grown. Some cultivators recommend jarring the tree sud- 

 denly in the morning and evening, when they will fall and can be 

 caught on a cloth and destroyed. I have been troubled but little 

 with this pest. I keep hens in the orchard, and no grass or weeds 

 grow around mj' trees. I think the hens and clean cultivation will 

 prevent nearly all trouble from this insect. 



SOIL. 



I have grown all of my plums upon a clay-loam, well drained 

 naturall}', and quite moist. I do not wish to be understood that 

 plums cannot successfully grow upon other kinds of soil, nor that 

 my manner of cultivation is the best. It is simply my experience, 

 and m}^ success has been very satisfactory'. 



DRESSING. 



The principal dressing used has been stable manure and sea-weed 

 applied liberally in autumn, wood ashes and salt in the spring. I 

 am satisfied that fruit growers, generally, do not use dressing with 

 the liberality they should. In the spring, as soon as the ground 

 becomes in condition to work, I fork around m^^ trees, being care- 

 ful not to interfere with the roots, mixing the dressing that was 

 placed around them in the previous autumn with the soil, and at the 

 same time apply wood ashes and salt. Droppings from the hen- 

 house and pig-pen will not injure them. 



