82 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



must be useless, and he would have been saved the labor, the loss of time, and the 

 final disgust. Speak to him now of the Curculio, and he shrugs his shoulders, but 

 tells not what he thinks. French gentlemen will not say anything uncivil ; therefore 

 he will not say anything to one who believes the Curculio can be conquered. 



\f I can change all this ; if I can only succeed in convincing all fruit-growers that 

 there is no nostrum of the least value ; that not one of the mixtures, washes, smokes, 

 or smells now known will do any good, I shall have cleared the way for laying a 

 foundation on which to build a rational system of management. 



June 11. In a visit to the old orchard to-day, it was apparent that the crop of 

 apples was thin. The blossoms were profuse, and there had been no frost or other 

 atmospheric cause to interfere. But the first crop of leaves had been so injured by 

 the visitation of plant lice that most of them fell off. The ground for a few days was 

 thickly strewn with these speckled and yellow leaves. Then soon fell also a large 

 portion of the young fruit. But now the leaves and fruit both look well. The plant 

 lice here, like those on the Peach trees and Maple trees that came in such vast num- 

 bers with the first bursting of the leaf-buds, are now all gone. 



The apples in this orchard are less punctured by the Curculio than in any other 

 orchard I have yet seen this year. About thirty cows are now grazing here. In 

 other seasons the grass has been kept short all over the ground, but this year the 

 weather has been so favorable that the growth has been greater than thfi cattle could 

 consume, and the grass is now browsed close only under the trees. Here the cattle are 

 attracted partly by the shade, but chiefly by the apples the wind-falls or more pro- 

 perly speaking, the apples that fall from being destroyed by the grub of the Curculio 

 and the larva of the Apple Moth. The cows eat these apples ; the embryo enemies 

 are digested by them ; and the next crop suffers less on that account. Scarcely a 

 young Curculio will escape in this orchard. Were all the fruit establishments within 

 ten miles as faithfully attended to, but few of the apples would fall to the ground so 

 unseasonably next year. But the neighboring orchards are meadows, or under culti- 

 vation ; the punctured fruit that falls there lies undisturbed, and the young enemy 

 escapes, and will be on hand the next season to torment not only the owner but his 

 neighbors. 



June 12. Found two Curculios to-day. Plums that were stung early are now 

 falling rapidly. 



We have been eating green peas from the garden since the first of the month, 

 but I have not yet seen the Pea Bug. This beetle, called Pea-weevil Pea-bruchus, 



