574 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



The Diabrotica. A light green beetle with twelve spots on his 

 back (Diabrotica soror), is sometimes very injurious to early fruit, 

 by eating into it when ripe. The insect also eats leaves and blos- 

 soms. As the insect attacks the fruit just as it is ready to pick, it 

 is impossible to apply any disagreeable or poisonous spray. Some- 

 times the insects are driven away by dense smoke from fires in and 

 around the orchard. 



The Dried Fruit Worm. Dried fruit is often seriously injured 

 after packing, by a small worm, larva of a moth not yet determined. 

 The eggs are deposited on the fruit either while drying or while in 

 the packing-house, or through the cloth of the sacks, or seams of 

 the package. The eggs may be killed on the fruit before packing, 

 by dipping in boiling water, or by heating in an oven and after that 

 preventing the access of the moth. Infested fruit can also be treated 

 by bisulphide vapor, the method being the same as described for 

 nursery stock below. 



ANTS AND YELLOW JACKETS 



These insects are often of serious trouble during fruit drying. 

 Ants are most effectually disposed of by slightly opening their holes 

 in the ground by thrusting down a crowbar and pouring in a couple 

 of ounces of carbon bisulphide and closing again with earth. Yellow 

 jackets also nest in the ground in old squirrel or gopher holes, and 

 they too can be suffocated with carbon bisulphide or by pouring in 

 gasoline or kerosene and firing it. Hornets which nest in trees are 

 troublesome, but are much less numerous than the cave-dwelling 

 species. 



To destroy yellow jackets by trapping and poison is also feas- 

 ible. W. F. Moyer, of Napa, proceeds in this way : 



Make a thin fruit syrup by mashing the boiling ripe fruit, strain it and add 

 a little sugar. Place the syrup dishes on the drying ground where the "jackets" 

 are thickest. When the top of the syrup is covered with drowned and drowning 

 "jackets," scoop them out with the hand, and crush them with the foot. They 

 won't sting unless you pinch them. As the syrup evaporates fill up the dishes 

 with water. If a day or two should elapse when no fruit is cut, be sure the 

 traps are well cared for, as they will swarm around them thicker than ever, 

 especially if the weather is hot. For dishes to place the syrup in, cut kerosene 

 cans so as to make two cans, each about six and one-half inches deep. 



Poisoning to carry destruction to the young brood is also prac- 

 ticable. Dr. J. H. Miller, of San Leandro, saved his fruit in this 

 way: 



I bought half a dozen beef livers, five pounds of arsenious acid and several 

 pounds of baling wire. Cutting the liver into pieces as large as a man's fist, 

 I put them into a hot solution of arsenious acid, and, bending the wire into 

 a hook at each end, I suspended the pieces from the lower limbs of trees all 

 around my drying-ground. The fruit was soon deserted, and the little insects 



