12 N. H. AGR. EXPERIMENT STATION. ' [Bulletin 171 



THE APPLE. 



A present general food plant of the maggot is the cultivated 

 apple in its many varieties and hybrids, including the wild apples 

 or seedlings that are derived from the cultivated fruit and are 

 found in large numbers in New England, This is the host in 

 which the species reaches its present large economic importance 

 and in which most individuals of the species now pass their larval 

 life. A fuller discussion of the relative severity of attack in 

 various varieties of apples will be found later. 



Neither the cultivated apple nor the wild seedlings can have 

 been the original host of the species in America. The former did 

 not exist in this country prior to the coming of Europeans. It 

 is not conceivable that the species came into existence since that 

 time. The seedling apples are offshoots of the cultivated apple. 

 While they are now plentiful in a wild state, both near to and 

 remote from orchards, and frequently are infested, all of them 

 bear the blood of the cultivated apple and therefore cannot have 

 been the original food plant of the maggot. 



THE PEAR. 



Harvey, in his report for 1892 as entomologist of the Maine 

 Experiment Station (26), states that he had learned through a 

 Vermont correspondent that the apple maggot infests pears in 

 that state. This was the only evidence available. The same 

 report states that the species had not been observed in pears in 

 Maine. So far as the writer is aware there is no verified published 

 record of infestation of pears. 



CRAB-APPLES. 



The apple maggot was noted in crabs by Riley in 1872 (52), It 

 was recorded again in this fruit by Fletcher in 1905 (20). In 

 his preliminary report for 1912 Ross (55) states that he found the 

 maggot at work in a crab-apple that was in close proximity to a 

 badly infested orchard. 



The writer has inquired of entomologists in all of the sections 

 in which the apple maggot is found, and through their coopera- 

 tion is able to offer the following additions to the record. Pro- 

 fessor M, B, Cummings of the University of Vermont states that 

 he has occasionallj' seen the species in crabs. Professor R, H 



