3/6 Notes and Gleanings. 



the tree cautiously, and with the thumb and finger snapping the base of the limb on 

 which a female curculio is at her work. At the first jar, the insect seems to be- 

 come aware of danger. She immediately starts up ; and, by the time the second 

 or third is felt, she will have loosened her hold, and depressed her snout upon 

 her body, folded her legs and antenna, and dropped to the ground. Violent 

 shaking of the trees generally fails to frighten them ; while any decided jarring 

 motion quickly imparted to the tree is all that is required to bring them down. 



Various modes for destroying these insects annually appear in print. Ninety- 

 nine out of each hundred are worth less than the paper on which they are 

 written. Nearly all the successful, so reported, are evidently made by per- 

 sons, who, having in preceding years lost their fruit from being stung by this 

 insect, set about trying some experiment to head off the curculio, and are sur- 

 prised to find their fruit escape injury. They at once jump to the conclusion 

 that they have hit upon the infallible remedy, and without loss of time herald it 

 to the world. 



If persons experimenting were fully acquainted with its habits, and the many 

 casualties this insect is subjected to, they wguld then see how premature it 

 would be to give the result of a single season's experience as conclusive of 

 success. Three only of the remedies that have been proposed will receive any 

 notice from us. 



A few years since, the lime-remedy was quite generally received as a sure 

 protection to the plum. At the time of its appearance in print, we were operat- 

 ing with our curculio-catcher, and at once discontinued its use on several of our 

 trees, and made a most thorough trial of the lime, which at first promised to be 

 a success. It did not seem to deter the curculio from depositing its eggs in the 

 plums ; but they did not hatch. 



Later, the weather becoming dry, the succeeding deposits did hatch, and the 

 larvae penetrated the plums as freely as in those not limed. 



Further experiments with the lime proved, that, so long as the weather was 

 wet, the lime, or the caustic properties of the lime, were imparted to the water, and 

 entered the perforation in which the eggs were deposited, and destroyed them, 

 but was of no value in dry weather. 



The second remedy we shall consider — that of pasturing the orchard with 

 hogs — is valuable to some extent ; since all the fallen fruit, with the larvae they 

 contain, are consumed by them. In isolated orchards, this would be sufficient 

 protection, were it not for the fact that larvae are often perfected in the fruit, 

 and eat their way out, while the fruit is yet upon the tree. To our certain knowl- 

 edge, this invariably occurs to an extent to stock the orchard with curculios the 

 following year. 



We now come to the third and only certain remedy yet known, — that of jarring 

 down and destroying the insects during the entire curculio season ; and, since 

 ours is the only practical mode of capturing the insects expeditiously yet pub- 

 lished, we refer the reader to a description of and the mode of operating the 

 same to " The Practical Entomologist," vol. ii. p. 78. 



