542 [Assembly 



plum trees, and on a full aud satisfactory trial I found that not a 

 tree escaped damage as they do accidentally almost any where. 

 Outside, where I made other experiments with other remedies, 

 some trees escaped damage. 



The Chairman asked, what is the best antidote? 



Professor Mapes. — Harlem oil is a good remedy, but it is worse 

 than the disease. 



Mr. Meigs asked the club if any one of them had ever seen the 

 curculio, which attacks plums? Here are twenty or thirty gen- 

 tlemen, all of whom desire to know this enemy. 



Professor Mapes. — I have seen three or four of them. 



Samuel Fleet. — I never could find one. David Thomas, of 

 Cayuga, has caught them by holding sheets under the trees and 

 striking the branches. This insect performs its work in a very 

 short time. 



Mr. Meigs. — I have sought eagerly for this curculio all my life 

 nearly in vain, and I am seventy years of age. 



The race of curculio is very numerous — some hundreds of 

 kinds — few of them injurious to vegetation. The famous enemy 

 of our wheat — the fly is very small, and it requires very close 

 examination to distinguish it from the harmless gnats. I have 

 seen the likeness of the plum wevil and the fly, and so have 

 most of us who never saw either of them dead or alive. 



Professor Mapes. I will give five dollars for a half dozen of 

 them in a bottle. 



Judge Livingston. — Can any member inform me how to make 

 the plum tree bear every year? No answer. 



Professor Mapes. — There are a hundred insects that poultry 

 will not touch. Who ever saw poultry eating a catterpillar which 

 so greatly abounds ? 



Mr. Fleet. — Cedar birds devour them voraciously, especially 

 those on locust trees. 



