INSECT PESTS 



237 



the insect works. The first indication of their pres- 

 ence may be numerous bees, wasps or hornets about the 

 trees in search of the sweet liquid thus produced. 

 Soon the trees have a dirty appearance due to the dust 

 of the atmosphere collecting in the sticky exudations 

 and to a dark colored fungus that grows in it. Orchards 

 have been practically ruined by this pest in two or 

 three years where no effort has been made to control, it. 



Remedy — Spraying in the spring before the buds 

 have opened with a twenty-five per cent solution of 

 kerosene, which will destroy most 

 of the hibernating insects or eggs, if 

 there are any, and, when the young 

 begin to appear in June, spraying 

 with a ten or fifteen per cent of the 

 same, from one to three times, as 

 may be needed. The trees should 

 be examined in the warm days of 

 spring and if this pest is found, 

 spraying should be done as above, 

 and from the first of June very 

 frequent examinations should be 

 made that the remedy may be applied as soon as the 

 first insects appear. 



Pear Leaf Blister (Phytoptus pyri) — This mite 

 causes injury by its puncture of the young leaves and 

 new growing shoots, entering the tissue and causing 

 blister-like swellings of a reddish color in the early 

 summer. The mite is entirely hidden from view in the 

 tissues of the injured parts, where it cannot be reached 

 by any insecticide. The matured insect hibernates 

 under the bud scales or bark of the tree, laying its eggs 

 in the warm days of spring. 



Remedy — Spraying with kerosene, twenty-five per 

 cent, in water, before the leaves unfold, is sure to destroy 

 most of the hibernating insects, and perhaps some of 



Fig. 125— Pear Psylla 



