INSECT ENEMIES 13! 



the crop of fruit is light. This insect occurs every- 

 where and feeds upon various kinds of fruit, espe- 

 cially stone fruits, although it often attacks apples 

 also. Some energetic peach growers have thought 

 it profitable to maintain an active campaign against 

 this insect, but it seems to be a more common prac- 

 tice to let the curculio take what fruit it will and 

 trust to the June drop or to hand thinning to elim- 

 inate the greater portion of the infested fruits. 



The adult insect is a small hard beetle with a short 

 snout. This beetle comes nosing around about the 

 time the fruit trees bloom. The female lays her eggs 

 in the young fruit, making a small crescent-shaped 

 puncture in which to place each egg. The eggs 

 hatch in from three to five days and the larvae bore 

 into the fruit. They usually complete their damage 

 in two or three weeks. By this time the fruit often 

 falls to the ground. The larvae enter the soil, where 

 they pupate. Here they change again to beetles, 

 emerging two or three weeks later to feed on the 

 ripening fruit. 



Good care and clean cultivation in summer tend 

 to reduce the damage of the curculio to some extent. 

 By gathering and destroying fallen fruit a large 

 number of insects are removed from the orchard. 

 The regulation textbook method of fighting the cur- 

 culio is to jar the trees during the early mornings 

 of May and June and to catch the beetles upon 

 sheets spread under the trees. During the cool 

 mornings the insects are sluggish and easily fall 

 from the tree when it is shaken. 



A regular piece of apparatus for this sort of work 

 is made by constructing a canvas umbrella about 

 12 feet in diameter. This umbrella has an open 

 slit on one side reaching from the circumference to 

 the center. The umbrella is then mounted in an in- 



