174 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



The peach-borer {Sanninoidea exitiosa Say) is probably the commonest 

 and is certainly the most ancient enemy of the peach in America. It is 

 found everj^'here east of the Rocky Mountains and, since it is a native, its 

 natural host being the wild species of Prunus, it has been a parasite on the 

 peach from the earliest introduction of this fruit. All in all, it is the most 

 destructive insect-pest of the peach, its presence always endangering the 

 life of the tree. All peach-growers know the peach-borer. It is a white, 

 grub-like caterpillar with a yellowish, shield-like head, which lives and 

 feeds in the trtmk of the peach just below the surface of the ground, eating 

 out irregular chambers and galleries underneath the bark, sometimes 

 girdling the trees. The pest is easily discovered through the exudation 

 from the infested part of gum mixed with borings and excreta. The 

 borers are found at all times in the summer, usually very small in late 

 summer and autumn but an inch or more in length in early summer. The 

 borer is a larva of a wasp-like moth which lays its eggs in early summer; 

 these hatch in from seven to ten days and the minute borers work their 

 way into the tree. The moth may be deterred somewhat from depositing 

 her eggs by thorough cultivation, mounding the trees and, according to 

 some, by the use of obnoxious coverings or poisonous washes on the trunk. 

 Preventive measures are seldom sufficiently effective, however, and the 

 borers must be destroyed. This is best done by digging them out with a 

 knife or wire — "worming" in the parlance of the peach-grower. 



The lesser peach-borer (Sesia pictipes Grote & Robinson) is rather infre- 

 quently fotind infesting the peach in New York. It usually attacks only 

 old trees or those showing injury from freezing or other causes. The borer 

 is much like the common peach-borer, described in the foregoing para- 

 graph, but is smaller, seldom reaching the length of four-fifths of an inch. 

 Unlike the true borer, it infests the trunks as well as the crowns of peach- 

 trees, feeding in much the same way. Fortunately the pest is not common 

 in the State, for it is rather difficult to control, since not only the crown 

 but the tnmk must be reached in worming for the pest. 



The plum-curculio {Conotrachelus nenuphar Herbst) is sometimes a 

 troublesome pest of the peach. It is a rough, grayish, hump-backed 

 snout-beetle somewhat less than a quarter of an inch in length, an insect 

 so familiar to fruit-growers as hardly to need description. The female 

 beetle pierces the skin of the young peaches and places an egg in the 

 puncture. About this cavity she gouges out a crescent-shaped trench, 

 the puncture and trench making the star and crescent of the Ottoman 



