CULTOR. 



Indian corn crop, to say nothing of their great 

 importance in the culture of root crops. Among 

 implements of this kind in high repute in the 

 United States, is Bement's Improved Cultiva- 

 tor and Horse-hoe, which not only admits of 

 being widened and contracted at pleasure, but 

 is so constructed as to be easily adapted to soils 

 of different textures, being furnished with 

 teeth or shares of various forms, suited to 

 the nature of the soil to be operated on. An 

 excellent cultivator, not protected by patent, is 

 in general use among the Pennsylvania fai- 

 roers near Philadelphia, where it can be pro- 

 cured at the agricultural implement stores for 

 about $5. See GRUHBF.R and SCARIFIER. 



CULTOR or COULTER. The strong sharp- 

 ened bar of iron that is fixed in ploughs, for 

 the purpose of cutting open the earth before 

 the share. See PLOUGH. 



CUMIN SEED. The seed or fruit of the 

 Cumimtm cyminum, which is imported from 

 Sicily and Malta. It has been occasionally 

 grown in England, but as it does not produce 

 its seeds until the second year, and requires a 

 rich, and consequently high-rented soil, the 

 double rent adds heavily to its culture. (Brit. 

 Hush. vol. ii. p. 328.) Cumin is a plant of lit- 

 tle beauty, and in a garden merely requires to 

 be sown in any open border to succeed. 



CURCULIO (Curculionida). A name applied 

 by naturalists to designate a family of beetles, 

 distinguished from other insects of the same 

 tribe by their shortness and thickness, and 

 from each other by the length and direction of 

 their snouts. The corn-weevil, so destructive 

 to grain in the stack and garners, belongs to 

 this family, together with the larvce or maggots 

 found so often in chestnuts, acorns, hickory- 

 nuts, and filberts ; as well as unripe plums, 

 apricots, peaches, and cherries. 



The destruction of fruit occasioned annually 

 by these species which bore into fruits and oc- 

 casion them to fall from the tree before ripen- 

 ing, is so great as to make it a matter of great 

 importance to acquire the most accurate know- 

 ledge in regard to the appearance and habits 

 of these insects, as the only means by which 

 their effects can be counteracted. Often in 

 gardens and orchards, trees loaded with young 

 plums lose tha whole of their fruit from the 

 depredations of grubs, which have been ascer- 

 tained by naturalists to be the larvae or young 

 of a small beetle of the weevil tribe, called the > 

 Nenuphar, or plum-weevil, and still more com- 

 monly in the United States, the curculio. Dr. 

 Harris states that he has found the beetles in 

 Massachusetts as early as the 30th of March, 

 and as late as the 10th of June, and at various 

 intermediate times, according to the advanced 

 or retarded state of vegetation in the early part 

 of the season. He has frequently caught them 

 flying in the middle of the day. 



" They are from three-twentieths to one-fifth 

 of an inch long, exclusive of the curved snout, 

 which is rather longer than the thorax, and is 

 bent under the breast, between the forelegs, 

 when at rest. Their colour is a dark brown, 

 variegated with spots of white, ochre-yellow, 

 and black. The thorax is uneven ; the wing- 

 covers have several short ridges upon them, 

 those on the middle of the back forming two 

 374 



CURCULIO. 



considerable humps, of a black colour, behind _ 

 which there is a wide band of ochre-yellow 

 and white. Each of the thighs has two little 

 teeth on the under side. They begin to sting 

 the plums as soon as the fruit is set, and, as 

 some say, continue their operations till the first 

 of August. After making a suitable puncture 

 with their snouts, they lay one egg in each 

 plum thus stung, and go over the fruit on the 

 tree in this way till their store is exhausted ; so 

 that where these beetles abound, not a plum 

 will escape being punctured. The irritation 

 arising from these punctures, and from the 

 gnawings of the grubs after they are hatched, 

 causes the young fruit to become gummy, 

 diseased, and finally to drop before it is ripe. 

 Meanwhile the grub comes to its growth, and, 

 immediately after the fruit falls, burrows into 

 the ground. This may occur at various times 

 between the middle of June and of August ; and, 

 in the space of a little more than three weeks 

 afterwards, the insect completes its transforma- 

 tions, and comes out of the ground in the beetle 

 form. The history of the insect thus far, is the 

 result of Dr. Harris's own observations ; the 

 remainder rests on the testimony of other per- 

 sons. 



" In an account of the plum-weevil, by Dr. 

 James Tilton of Wilmington, Delaware, pub- 

 lished in Mease's ' Domestic Encyclopedia,' 

 under the article Fruit, and since republished 

 in the ' Georgical Papers for 1809,' of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and in 

 other works, it is stated, that peaches, necta- 

 rines, apples, pears, quinces, and cherries, are 

 also attacked by this insect, and that it remains 

 in the earth in the form of a grub, during the 

 winter, ready to be matured as a beetle, as the 

 spring advances. These statements," says Dr. 

 Harris, " I have not yet been able to confirm. 

 It seems, however, to have been fully ascer- 

 tained by Professor Peck, Mr. Say, and others, 

 in whose accuracy full confidence may be 

 placed, that this same weevil attacks all our 

 common stone-fruits, such as plums, peaches, 

 nectarines, apricots, and cherries; Dr. Burnett 

 has recently assured me that he has seen this 

 beetle puncturing apples ; and it is not at all 

 improbable that the transformations of some 

 of the grubs may be retarded till the winter is 

 passed, analogous cases being of frequent oc- 

 currence. Those that are sometimes found in 

 apples must not be mistaken for the more com- 

 mon apple-worms, which are not the larvte of 

 a weevil. The Rev. F. V. Melsheimer remarks 

 in his Catalogue, that this insect lives under 

 the bark of the peach tree. Professor Peck 

 raised the same beetle from a grub found in the 

 warty excrescence of a cherry tree, and from 

 this circumstance named it Rhynctuentu cerasi, 

 the cherry-weevil. The plum, still more than 

 the cherry tree, is subject to a disease of the 

 small limbs, which shows itself in the form of 

 large irregular warts, of a black colour, as if 

 charred. Grubs, apparently the same as those 

 that are found in plums, have often been de- 

 tected in these warts, which are now generally 

 supposed to be produced by the punctures of 

 the beetles, and the residence of the grubs. 

 Professor Peck says that ' the seat of the dis- 

 | ease is in the bark. The sap is diverted from 



