July, 1914.] THE APPLE MAGGOT. 27 



that in many instances the grower at present in charge of an 

 orchard or farm was not resident there or not actively interested 

 in the subject fifteen or twenty years before, it will be seen that 

 probably the apple maggot was somewhat generally to be found 

 in New Hampshire orchards in early fruit twenty or more years 

 prior to 1910, and in many sections certainly was in evidence at 

 a much earlier date. 



The grower who reported that he had observed the pest in 

 apples forty years before was Mr. F. S. Slayton of Lebanon, a 

 town in the western part of the state, in the Connecticut Valley. 

 Since this statement was made in 1910, the date when the maggot 

 was noted by this grower would be 1870, which is prior to the 

 first published record of infestation in New Hampshire (52). 



An interesting comment on the first appearance of the maggot 

 was offered by Mr. Bela Chapin in a letter to the writer in Febru- 

 ary, 1910. Mr. Chapin lives in Claremont, N. H., in the Connec- 

 ticut Valley. He said: "When the maggot first appeared here 

 about twenty-five or thirty years ago the orchards by the river 

 on low land were first affected, and it was all of five years from the 

 maggot's first appearance in town that it appeared in my orchard." 



A third correspondent reporting in 1910 that the maggot had 

 been injurious in his orchard for more than thirty years lives in 

 Londonderry, in the southeastern part of the state. A report of 

 infestation for thirty-five years prior to 1910 came from Gofifstown 

 in southern New Hampshire. Other early records were received 

 from Weare, Wakefield, Goshen, Canterbury, Tilton, Gilmanton, 

 Hanover, Bristol, Alton, and Chesterfield, representing various 

 sections in western, central, southern and eastern New Hamp- 

 shire. 



PREVALENCE OF WILD APPLES, AND INFESTATION BY THE 



MAGGOT. 



The existence of infested wild or seedling apples in the neigh- 

 borhood of orchards is obviously a possible factor in persistent 

 infestation by the maggot, if such apples are neglected, which is 

 usually the case. 



Out of 195 growers sending in reports on this subject, 139 

 stated that wild apples, or "natural fruit" as these trees are 

 termed, grow in the vicinity of their cultivated trees. Fifty-six 



