348 Insect Pests. 



arsenical wash, and for this Paris green will damage the blossom 

 best. There is thus no food for the maggots, and the result is they 

 die off. If it is done just before the blossom bursts the chance of 

 damaging bees is slight. Nature, fortunately, steps in to help with 

 frosts cutting all the blossom, and thus next year a crop may mature. 

 This has been noticed on several occasions. In America kainit has 

 been shown to destroy in some way the maggots in the soil. An 

 experiment conducted on some badly infested trees in my garden 

 with this gave very positive results, but many growers have written 

 and told me that it has had no effect. I believe Professor Snow 

 found it most successful in America at the rate of a ton to the acre, 

 but the cost and at the same time the damage done to the pear trees 

 makes this impossible here. At Wye (21) I used five hundredweight 

 with desired effect, but perhaps it was not the kainit but some 

 unknown cause that stamped the pest out. Much must depend upon 

 the time of application. It appeared to me to be most effectual when 

 spread on the soil just when the maggots were escaping. At the 

 South Eastern iVgricultural College Parm kainit was used after the 

 larva' had gone to earth, and the attack was not nearly as bad next 

 year (21). 



Piemoval of surface soil, as is done for sawfly attack in gardens, is 

 certainly well worth doing, but, of course, is out of the question in 

 orchard cultivation. 



Mr. Bunyard has found that removal of surface soil for about 

 7 inches and burning it is successful, and also that in an old 

 plantation, by taking off the lower branches and dressing with kainit, 

 the trees were cured to some extent. Lintner (11) suggested 

 drenching the ground beneath the trees with paraffin emulsion soon 

 after the larvie have fallen. If this is to have any effect it must be 

 done within two weeks after they have fallen, for after that they 

 are protected by their cocoons and, as we found at Wye, thorough 

 drenching then did no good at all (21). 



Mr. Page stated, at the conference of fruit-growers at the Ptoyal 

 Horticultural Society in October 1905, that the Pear Midge can be 

 killed by dressing the ground with bone meal, sulphate of iron, kainit, 

 and superphosphate. 



One, I believe, of the most practical ways of lessening their 

 damage in orchards is to heavily stock them with poultry at the time 

 the maggots are falling and when the flies are due to make their 

 escape. In every case where this has been done very much good has 

 resulted. 



In the case of the large perry pear trees in the western counties 



