032 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



largely reduces the injury, careful experiments have shown that 

 it is much less effective than liquid spraying, and as it is not 

 satis "actory or the control of fungous diseases, the liquid spray- 

 ing is to be preferred where feasible. 



The Apple-maggot or " Railroad Worm " * 



The apple-maggot has long been known as the worst pest of 

 summer and fall apples in the New England States, and has 

 extended its injuries to eastern New York and southeastern 

 Canada. It has been recorded from Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, 

 Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but seems to be only 

 occasionally injurious there, though it has been reared from haws 

 in Illinois and Wisconsin, which would indicate that the insect 

 is native in those States. Evidently it is widely distributed 

 throughout the northeastern United States, but for some reason 

 is most injurious in New England. The fruit is injured by the 

 small white maggots, which burrow through the flesh, leaving 

 discolored streaks through it, often becoming so numerous as to 

 entirely honeycomb the pulp which breaks down into a yellowish 

 mass merely held together by the skin. An apple quite fair 

 exteriorly will often be found to be almost completely '/ rail- 

 roaded " by the maggots, although brown, slightly sunken 

 streaks in the skin usually indicate their presence. Sweet and 

 subacid varieties of summer and early fall apples are worst injured, 

 but where the pest develops unchecked, winter sorts, such as the 

 Baldwin and particularly the Northern Spy, are often seriously 

 injured. 



The parent of the maggot is a little fly slightly smaller than 

 the house-fly, of a blackish color, with yellowish head and legs, 

 greenish eyes, and three or four white bands across the abdomen. 

 The wings are marked by four black bands, as shown in Fig. 490, 

 which distinguish it from similar flies found on apples. 



* Rhagoletis ponwnella Walsh. Family Trypetidce. See A. L. Quaintance, 

 Circular 101, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Dept. Agr.; F. L. Harvey, Report 

 Maine Agr. Exp. Sta., 1889, p. 190; W. C. O'Kane, Journal of Economic 

 Entomology, IV, 173. 



