THE PLUM. 3lfi 



and labor equal in the aggregate to that of a single entire 

 day, may save large and valuable crops. 



3. The third class of remedies includes the different means 

 of destroying the fallen fruit, as soon as it drops, and before 

 the larvse escape to the earth. One of these consists in 

 heating the ground smooth beneath the tree, sweeping up 

 the fallen fruit daily, and feeding it to hogs or otherwise 

 destroying it. Paving with brick, by preventing the en- 

 trance of the insects into the ground, effects the same 

 purpose. If the soil is hard clay, beating the surface, 

 renders it nearly as compact as a pavcmert. Hence, the 

 reason why the plum crop more frequently escapes in clayey 

 regions, than on lighter soils, where the insect makes its 

 way more easily into the earth. 



But more effectual than the last, is the confinement of 

 swine beneath the trees. They immediately pick up and 

 destroy the punctured fruit, and by their constant presence, 

 serve to frighten away the insects from their work of de- 

 struction. Experience has thoroughly established the effi- 

 ciency of this method, where a sufficient number of swine has 

 been allowed the run of the orchard. Geese and hens are, 

 to a limited extent, useful in repelling or destroying the 

 curculio. 



To apply this remedy most efficiently, all the trees of the 

 apricot, nectarine, and plum, should be planted apart from 

 the rest of the orchard, so that swine may be exclusively 

 confined among them, where they should be allowed to re- 

 main the whole season, except during the period of the 

 ripening of the fruit. It will be quite necessary, however, 

 to protect all the younger trees, by encasing them in board 

 boxes, or by tying round them a mass of sweet-briar limbs 

 or other densely prickly or thorny plant. 



Dr. Kirtland says, " This insect, last season, [1848,] de- 

 stroyed every plum on my farm, except the crop of one tree 

 in my swine lot ; that tree is bending under its load ot 

 fruit." A cultivator in western New-York, by the large 

 number of hogs kept in his plum yard, had abundant crops 

 for more than twenty successive years, while his neglectful 

 neighbors lost the greater part of theirs. It may, however, 

 happen, in thickly planted neighborhoods, that swine may 

 not prove a sufficient protection ; but we know of no in- 

 21 N* 



