62 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



sections of our country confining hogs in the plum orchards has been thought advantageous, and which has 

 been the practice of the writer with signal success until within two years my hogs being regularly fed under 

 one tree, treading the ground so much as to destroy all vegetation this tree retained its fruit until ripening, 

 excepting last year. 



" The cultivators of this fruit are entirely discouraged. One object in this communication is to inquire, 

 through the Cultivator, if the Curculio has ever been known to absent itself from any district where it has 

 been known to be prevalent if not, then we may as well cut down our trees at once. 



" Before the appearance of this insect, finer Plums were never grown, perhaps, than in this section, fine 

 crops being obtained from grafting on the wild plum (Prunus Americana) in three or four years' time. 



"ADRIAN, February, 1852. B. J. H." 



The above is a remarkably straightforward account, and is valuable as showing 

 the time of the appearance and the subsequent progress of this insect in a new country. 

 Last year ( 1 864) there was a section of country around Buffalo, N. Y., where only 

 plums and peaches appeared to suffer from this insect, the apples escaping. I sup- 

 posed the wonderful exemption of that neighborhood was owing to a partial drought 

 in the season preceding; it was so like what I have seen and heard of so often before. 

 I would let the trees stand, even if nothing else should be done to save the plums 

 except to wait for favoring weather. It appears that the tree under which the hogs 

 were so constantly fed was the last to yield to the enemy. David Thomas's account 

 of his experience in jarring, as shown in the preceding chapter, will probably explain 

 the cause of the failure when " persevered in for months." 



In the same number of the Cultivator from which the above extract is taken, 

 there is a short account from the Prairie Farmer, of a man who kept his hogs in his 

 Plum Orchard for seven years in succession, during which time he had plenty of fruit, 

 though none came to maturity outside of that orchard ; but on changing the hogs to 

 another part of the farm every plum was stung. 



In the Genesee Farmer of 1848, p. 1 14, is an article from the Horticulturist, in which 

 it is said that " a heap of fresh manure under the trees proved a remedy, and the 

 Editor (A. J. Downing) gives his testimony to this plan, by stating that two Nectarine 

 trees, standing by a fence near his stable, bore fruit to ripen, when other trees within 

 a short distance shed all theirs in consequence of being stung by the Curculio." This 

 question of the influence of manure or other strong smells under trees, for repelling 

 the Curculio, has been more or less discussed from that time till now. I have tried 



