94 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



is badly stung by the Curculio. The crop of apples is better, but it also is badly 

 injured by this enemy. 



Aug. 5. This part of the country is devoted to wool-growing, Merino sheep 

 abound. I encountered a company of some twenty bucks in an orchard. They are 

 queer-looking animals. Imagine a Broadway exquisite and one of these sheep 

 brought face to face, and the former to be told that the coat that makes him about 

 all he is, had been worn a whole year by the latter, before it had fallen to his portion- 

 that the man is the shoddy of the sheep ! What man owes to this uncouth Merino 

 woman owes to a repulsive caterpillar ; and how little credit either ever gives to the 

 real producer of what they are so proud of. " Such is life." 



I have been called the " Curculio man." I certainly have tried to find out how 

 most successfully to secure our fruits from the depredations of this insect. Some 

 men write long articles about the comparative values of the domestic animals, but 

 the Curculio-destroying merit has seldom entered into these calculations. Those 

 who have Merino bucks valued at a thousand dollars a head, may, after the experi- 

 ence of to-day, add a good many more dollars to this thousand. No apples were to 

 be seen lying on the ground here. I picked some green and hard from the trees, 

 and the sheep ate them with avidity. One of them amused me by his repeated 

 attempts to help himself from a pendent branch ; he could just touch the apple with 

 his nose, when standing straight up on his hind feet, but the fruit would slip away as 

 he attempted to take it. The part he could reach was a segment of too large a cir- 

 cle for that narrow mouth. He tried again and again ; the seventh attempt was 

 successful. " Patience and perseverance overcome difficulties." Sheep may be 

 added to the other domestic animals qualified to settle the Curculio question. 



Aug. 6. The approach to Rochester from the east shows to what an immense 

 extent the nursery business is carried on, and a visit to Ellwanger and Barry proves 

 that it must be profitable, at least in one instance. I was in pursuit of an apricot for 

 illustrating this book a Moorpark, such as I have grown by hundreds of bushels on 

 the Upper Hudson, but could find none a few trees, but no fruit The Plum 

 orchard in this establishment is superb, and well loaded with fruit Here can be 

 seen most of the kinds now known ; and how any one who has seen such an 

 orchard can resist the temptation to have one for himself, is marvellous. Let us hope 

 that this magnificent fruit, now so neglected, will soon be restored. These gentle- 

 men have it every year. The Curculio is in Rochester, and would take. their plums, 

 but they do not let it Others can do the same. There is no mystery about it 



