THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



favorable experience in regard to liogs eating 

 fallen peaches. His peaches were very free 

 from worms this year. He attributes this to 

 the fact, that the hogs in his orchard destroyed 

 so many of the larvie last year." 



S. B. Johnson, of Alton, has this year, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Hull, the fullest and cleanest 

 crop of peaches out of forty peach orchards in 

 the neighborhood. We personally examined 

 his peach orchard in the middle of June, 1868, 

 and can testify that at that period there were 

 fully twice as many peaches on his trees as 

 ought to have stood for a crop, so that already 

 many of the limbs were beginning to break 

 down and had to be propped up. "We can also 

 testify, that at that period there was but a very 

 small sprinkling of stung peaches to be met 

 with on his trees. In 1807, by the advice of 

 Dr. Hull, he allowed a gang of hogs the range 

 of his peach orchard all through the months of 

 May and June and the remaining part of the 

 summer, and this, it is altogether probable, is 

 one main-cause of the largeness of his present 

 crop. It should, however, be stated, that Mr. 

 Johnson himself attributes the largeness of his 

 peach crop this season, principally to his having 

 kept up a heavy smoke in his orchard during 

 five frosty nights and two or three cold sleety 

 days in the spring of 1868. No doubt, so far as 

 it went, this had a very beneficial eflect in pre- 

 venting the radiation of heat from the earth, 

 for the same reason that unseasonable frosts 

 always occur on bright, clear nights, and never 

 on cloudy nights. But still, however faithfully 

 this plau may have been carried out, it does not 

 in any way account for the paucity of curculios 

 in the summer of 1868. 



"VVe know a cultivator who had heavy crops of 

 plums for seventeen years in succession — his 

 swine for these seventeen years, without a sea- 

 son's interruption, being allowed the run of the 

 yard. — Country Gentleman, 1868. 



James Jones, of Manhattan, AVill Co., 111., 

 has eight plum trees in his orchard which have 

 been in bearing for seven years. During this 

 whole time he has had a good crop of plums 

 every year, which he attributes to a plan which 

 he has all along followed, of sprinkling salt 

 round the roots of every plum tree in the spring 

 of the year. Manifestly, however, tliis plan 

 could have no effect in killing the larva of the 

 curculio, when it goes underground; for it has 

 been shown that this larva will breed even in 

 pure salt. It came out incidentally inour con- 



versation with Mr. Jones, that for this whole 

 period of seven years he had had a herd of 

 calves running in his orchard, and also a buck 

 sheep. There can be little doubt that it is to 

 the action of these animals, in picking up and 

 devouring the wormy plums as fast as they fell, 

 that the very great and unusual success of this 

 gentleman in raising plums is to be really at- 

 tributed. Strangely enough, he had never sup- 

 posed himself that the calves and sheej) had 

 anything to do with his uniformlj- good crop of 

 plums. 



HOGS vs. APPLE WORMS. 



W. C. Flagg, of Moro, near Alton, has for 

 five years tried the plan of allowing hogs the 

 range of his apple orchard, and finds it very 

 beneficial by checking the depredations of fruit 

 boring insects. 



An apple grower in Southeast Michigan, 

 whose name and residence we omitted to note 

 down, has for mauy years back allowed hogs 

 the range of his apple orchard. His apples 

 have been but very little infested by the apple 

 worm, even in years when those of his neigh- 

 bors were swarming with this insect. In 1867, 

 the worst year for the apple worm that was 

 ever known in this country, he had but very 

 few; while in 1866, a year in which this insect 

 was not generally abundant, he had more of 

 them. 



Benjamin Bacon, of Niagara Co., N. Y., has 

 an apple orchard of about ten or twelve acres. 

 Fourteen years ago he turned his hogs into it, 

 and has continued this practice ever since. Before 

 he allowed hogs the range of his orchard, his 

 crop of apples was always a very poor one; 

 since he commenced this system he has raised 

 good crops ; ten or twelve of his neighbors have 

 followed his example with equally good results. 

 It is proper to add, however, that according to 

 our informant, Dr. Bacon, of N. HI., Mr. 

 Bacon's orchard used to be in grass, and that 

 since he adopted the plau of letting his hogi 

 run in it, he has plowed it over every two 

 years, and seeded it either to oats or to barley. 

 It is possible, therefore, that in this particular 

 case the difference in the modes of cultivatiou 

 may have had some little to do with the differ- 

 ence in the crops of apples. 



Jotham Bradbury, residing near (^uiucy, 111., 

 has an old apple orchard, which many years 

 ago used invariably to produce nothing but 

 wormy and gnarly fruit. A few ye.nrs ago lie 



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