ORCHARD CARE 151 



Chestnuts, hazels, hickories, and acorns are at- 

 tacked by larvae of a number of species of weevils 

 belonging to the genus Balaninus. All of the chest- 

 nuts, including the chinkapins, sometimes become so 

 much infested in a locality that few sound nuts are 

 to be found. The species attacking the shagbark 

 hickory are inclined to make large colonies in con- 

 nection with some one tree, although other trees in 

 the vicinity seem to offer just as good eating. They 

 have a tendency to choose some annually bearing tree 

 with thin-shelled nuts. When this is the case we 

 may dispose of the colony by collecting every single 

 nut, perfect and imperfect, that falls from the tree 

 in any one season, and fumigating all with carbon di- 

 sulphide. The nuts to be so treated must be put 

 into an air-tight receptacle like a metal ash can and 

 two ounces of carbon di-sulphide for each bushel of 

 nuts is placed in a shallow dish in the receptacle and 

 the cover then snugly closed. At the end of twenty- 

 four hours the cover may be removed and one may 

 find by cracking a few nuts if the weevils have been 

 killed. This treatment does not injure the germs of 

 nuts which are to be used for planting. Chestnuts 

 which are infested may be treated in the same way, 

 particularly chestnuts which are to be used for plant- 

 ing purposes. For eating purposes one does not 

 relish the idea of finding even a very small weevil 

 larva in a nut that is to be eaten even when the 

 larva has lost all hope. 



The hickory^shotgun borer, Scolytus quadrispi- 

 nosus, is called the shotgun borer because the bark 



