168 Fruits, Insects ^'C, [March, 



FRUITS, INSECTS &c. 



BY N. S. DAVIS. 



Agreeably to your suggestion I give you the following account 

 of the fruit crop in Binghamton and its vicinity. Apples, pears, 

 cherries, plums and grapes constitue the principal variety of fruit 

 cultivated in this section of country. A few peaches, however, 

 are successfully cultivated on the hills and colder locations around 

 us ; if planted in the warm gravelly soil in the valley of the riv- 

 ers, they bud and blossom so early that the fruit and the tree also 

 is very generally cut off by frosts; but all the other kinds of fruit 

 named, when well cultivated, attain a high degree of perfection. 



For three years previous to the one just past, the apple trees 

 in all the section around our village have been rendered entirely 

 barren by late frosts. Last fall however, the apple orchards were 

 heavily loaded with fruit, of fair size, and where pains had been 

 taken in its cultivation, of excellent flavor ; but great and al- 

 most universal neglect, or want of proper care and cultivation in 

 regard to the apple orchards prevails among us, and much injury 

 is also done to our best varieties of the apple, by the apple worm. 

 The depredations of this insect and worm have been increasing 

 for several years. 



Indeed, so prevalent has it become that scarcely a bushel of ap- 

 ples has come under my observation during the past year, that I 

 could not select out many that had been penetrated by the worm, 

 and I know of many good trees whose fruit has been entirely 

 spoiled by it. Comparatively few pear trees are cultivated in this 

 vicinity, but those tew w^ere the past autumn w^ell loaded with 

 a good quality of fruit. The plum and cherry trees have flour- 

 ished with us until the last four or five years, and in some locali- 

 ties or neighborhoods they flourish well yet, and have yielded an 

 abundance of good fruit during the past season ; but in very 

 many localities both these trees have been attacked by the Ryn- 

 chinus nenuphar or plum weevil, and not a few of both varie- 

 ties have been entirely destroyed, being converted into rough, 

 spongy black, insightly stumps ; many more are fast assuming the 

 same aspect. Indeed so prevalent has this destructive insect be- 

 come with us, that in our village and vicinity almost every plum 

 and cherry was attacked last spring by it, and the crop entirely 

 destroyed. My own plum and cherry trees looked very prosper- 

 ous early in the spring, they blossomed well, and set very full of 

 plums and cherries ; but they had scarcely attained the size of 

 pepper corns, before eAery plum and cherry showed the smicir- 

 cular cut of this insect, and not a single one of either at- 

 tained maturity. They were not content, however, with the fruit, 

 but they fiercely attacked the tender twigs of the trees also ; for 



