THE CURCULIO. 65 



On the same page of the Cultivator is the following short notice : " A. J. 

 Downing recommended, in the Horticulturist, throwing up the ground late in autumn 

 in trenches and ridges, for the purpose of freezing them, and stated that a correspondent 

 had found it quite successful. The writer tried this same way last fall, but this year 

 they were thicker than ever. On one little tree of the Italian Damask Plum, not 

 seven feet high, thus treated, eighteen Curculios were found at a single shaking." 

 The grub of the Curculio goes into the ground several inches, and there it changes 

 to a beetle, and this beetle comes to the surface, showing that as a beetle it has a 

 power of making its way through the ground. Had Mr. Downing known positively 

 whether the Curculio lives above or under ground in the winter, it would have been 

 a beginning for an investigation of facts on which to found this treatment. If these 

 insects live under ground in the winter how far, exactly ? and if brought to the 

 surface in the autumn, would they not creep back again ? or if they did not, would 

 the winter kill them ? 



In the Ohio Cultivator, 1849, 'vol. v -> P a g e 4 2 > George W. Dunn, of Chillicothe, 

 writes : 



" This is frequently called an age of improvements. It may be also called the age of oddities, one of 

 which I will send you for the public benefit. I am acquainted with a Highland County farmer of the name 

 of Martin, who is well known in the neighborhood for growing fine plums. A few weeks ago his son was at 

 my house, and I asked him how they could raise such fine plums when no one else could. He replied, that 

 as soon as the fruit was formed, they took a pocket-knife and made a slit through the bark, through the main 

 stem and larger limbs of the tree, and this, he said, was all." 



Now, strange as it appears, this was actually published in a respectable Agricul- 

 tural paper, and the man who wrote it said he intended to try it himself. That was 

 in Ohio, in 1849. Here is something from a Norristown, Penn., paper, in 1863: 



" How to Prevent the Curculio from Destroying Plums. A perfectly reliable man who lives in this 

 vicinity, was telling me, a few days since, how he managed to raise Plums. He says, just as the trees are 

 coming into full bloom, he takes a ragged stone and bruises the bark in the crotches of the trees j he leaves 

 the stone there. That, he says, arrests the gum which will exude from the wounded place, and prevents its 

 going to fruit, thus cutting off" what he supposes to be the food for the larvae. He says he has tried it for 

 many years, and never fails when the trees blossom, except when he neglects to bruise. My informer says, 

 do not be afraid of hurting plum-trees by bruising them ; he says the more they are bruised the more they 



