The Canadian Horticulturist. 37 



half of the new wood on all rampant growers, and finds that this makes them 

 able to support a much heavier load of fruit, and withstand the violent storms of 

 wind. This work should be done in the winter-time, or some time when the 

 trees are dormant ; never in the month of May, 



SPRAYING vs. JARRING FOR CURCULIO. 



|H0 is to prescribe when doctors disagree ? We have before us two 

 bulletins, published simultaneously, one from the Michigan Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, and the other from the Ohio Experiment Station, giving 

 growers contrary advice regarding the benefits of spraying for the curculio. Mr. 

 C. M. Weed, entomologist of the latter station, considers that he gave the spray- 

 ing a thorough test in a commercial orchard of nine hundred trees on the south 

 shore of Lake Erie, and, as a result, he says that, " so far as one experiment can 

 be relied upon, this method is as efficient as jarring, while it is vastly cheaper 

 and easier of application." Mr. Weed used four ounces of Paris green to 

 fifty gallons of water, and gave the orchard four applications. There were nine 

 hundred plum trees in it, and half of these were treated with Paris green, and 

 the other half carefully jarred in the usual manner. Both parts of the orchard 

 bore a heavy crop, but not over three per cent, of the fruit on the sprayed trees 

 was stung, while four per cent, of that on the jarred trees was injured. 



Prof. Cook, of Michigan, says, on the other hand, that he has been experi- 

 menting with arsenites for the curculio during the past ten years, indeed, ever 

 since he discovered the usefulness of Paris green for destroying the codling 

 moth, and only once has he had results that were entirely satisfactory to him. 

 During the same period he has been comparing the benefits of the old method 

 of jarring, with spraying, and his opinion now is, that the former is the " surest, 

 cheapest and best method of saving our plums." He acknowledges that the 

 parent beetle eats the foliage and fruit of the plum tree during the time when it 

 is engaged in oviposition, viz. : from the 20th of May until the ist of July, and 

 that the consumption of these leaves will kill it ; but in actual practice, he says, 

 one cannot rely upon the beetles eating enough of the poison to put an efTectual 

 stop to their work of destruction. 



The jarring must be done either early in the morning or late in the evening, 

 for the lazy little turk hides away under chips or other rubbish on the ground 

 during the day-time, and comes forth at night, like other evil doers, to do his 

 mischievous deeds. For this latitude, the work should begin about the 20th of 

 June and continue until about the ist of July, at which time the old beetles will 

 have completed their work ; and although the young beetles will be coming forth 

 in succession, the fruit will be beyond danger on account of its size, unless, 

 perhaps, the stings they make may predispose some of the plums to rot. The 

 jarring should be repeated nearly every day, unless very few specimens are found, 

 in which case it might be omitted for a day or two. 



