156 DATE GROWING 



In India ants have proved a menace to palms, the 

 white ant being particularly dreaded. Bonavia says 

 the best protection is constant irrigation. In Algeria, 

 too, an ant sometimes swarms up the palm and 

 destroys the terminal bud; the natives usually fight 

 him with fire. I doubt if ants will ever prove a pest 

 in the United States. 



Birds, bees, and wasps all attack the ripe fruit if 

 it is allowed to hang on the tree after it becomes soft. 

 With artificial ripening they will cause little damage; 

 under other circumstances a bag of cheap cheese- 

 cloth put over each cluster will prove an absolute 

 safeguard. 



This exhausts the list of principal diseases and 

 pests of the palm,* but there are certain troublesome 

 visitors of the stored dates which must be noticed. 

 Foremost of these is the fig moth, (Ephestia cautella) 

 and the similar Indian-meal moth, (Plodia inter- 

 punctella). The former is the one whose traces 

 will be found in the imported dates of commerce, as 

 well as in Smyrna figs, cacao beans, and other com- 

 modities; the latter has proved a particular pest in 

 Arizona. Their habits are so much alike that I 

 will treat them as one.f 



The small, gray moth (its wing expanse is 14 

 to 20 mm.) lays its white eggs on the fruit, or in the 

 basal end, if the calyx has been removed. The eggs 

 soon turn yellow and sometimes orange, a few days 

 before hatching. The larva when first hatched is 



*The effect of excess of alkali might be considered a disease; it 

 causes the palm to stop growth and its leaves to shrivel and change 

 color. 



fFull details are given in "The Fig Moth," by F. H. Chittenden 

 and E. G. Smyth. U. S. Dept. of Agric., Bur. Entomol., Bui. No. 

 104. Washington, 1911. 



