THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



plowed up this orchai'd and seeded it to clover, 

 by way of hog pasture. As soon as the clover 

 had got a sufficient start, he turned in a gang of 

 hogs, and has allowed them the range of liis 

 orchard ever since. Two years after the laud 

 was plowed the apple trees produced a good 

 crop of fair, smooth fruit, and have continued 

 to bear well ever since. 



M. L. Dunlap, of Champaign Co. ("Rural"), 

 keeps a few very fat, lazy-looking hogs, which 

 he has allowed for some time back to range over 

 ■ a three acre lot of apple-trees, among which 

 there also grow two plum trees and twenty 

 cherry trees. But this lot is surrounded on all 

 its four sides by extensive apple orchards not 

 pastured by hogs ; and, of course,the apple worm 

 moths, that breed in the surrounding apple trees, 

 have nothing to hinder them from flying at 

 discretion into the three acre lot, and laying 

 their eggs on the apples that grow therein. 

 Yet, even under such unfavorable circumstan- 

 ces, Mr. Dunlap was of opinion, after a careful 

 examination in the early part of July, 1868, that 

 there were not so many wormy apples on those 

 trees, that were situated in the middle of the 

 three acre lot, as in the average of his other 

 apple orchards. 



Suel Foster, of Muscatine Iowa, reports as 

 follows in the Transactions 111. State Hort. 

 Society, 1867, p. 213: " I have twenty-four acres 

 of my orchards seeded to clover, and last year 

 I turned the hogs in. I now observe that where 

 the hogs ran last year, the apples have not one- 

 fourth the worms that they have on other trees. 

 I this year turned the hogs into my oldest(home) 

 orchard." 



Mr. Huron Burt, of 'Williamsburg, Callaway 

 county. Mo., writes us that hogs are highly 

 valued in the orchards there, though they are 

 not expected to entirely extirpate either the Cur- 

 culio or the Codling motli; while Mr. T. R. 

 Allen of Allenton, 'and Mr. Varnum of Sulphur 

 Springs, Mo., have both testified to us as to the 

 good elTccts obtained from allowing hogs the 

 / run of their orchards. 



There are three practical difficulties iu the 

 way of carrying out this system of subduing 

 fruit boring insects by hog power. 1st. The 

 necessity of having all the orchard land under 

 a separate fence, which, of course, in many 

 cases involves a considerable extra outlay for 

 fencing materials. 2d. Tjbe necessity of giving 

 up a practice, which is conceded by the most 



intelligent fruit growers to be otherwise objec- 

 tionable ; namely, growing other crops, such as 

 small grain, corn, or small fruits, between the 

 rows of trees in bearing fruit orchards. 3d. 

 The necessity of giving up the modern fashion- 

 able theory of low-headed trees ; for otherwise, 

 if apple and peach trees are allowed to branch 

 out like a currant bush from the very root, any 

 hogs that range among them will manifestly bo 

 able to help themselves, not only to the wormy 

 windfalls that lie on the ground, but also to the 

 sound growing fruit upon all the lowermost 

 boughs. It is this rage for low headed trees 

 which has also been the chief impediment in 

 the way of the general adoption of Dr. Hull's 

 "Curculio catcher" — a machine which requires 

 the trees operated upon by it to be clear of all 

 branches for some three or four feet from the 

 ground. '\Vhere ti-ces are more low headed 

 than this, fruit growers in South Illinois have 

 been compelled to employ a modification of the 

 " curculio catcher," carried about from tree to 

 tree by two men, instead of being wheeled 

 about from tree to tree, wheelbarrow fashion, 

 by a single hand. Of course, where fruit grow- 

 ing is followed as a business, the wages of evbry 

 additional hand that can in any such way be 

 saved, are so much clear profit going into the 

 pockets of the proprietor. 



It is important, when hogs are employed for 

 the purpose of picking up fallen fruit, that they 

 should be kept moderately hungry, and not be 

 gorged every day with corn so as to make them 

 too lazy for work. Probably, for such a pur- 

 pose as this, the old-fashioned, long-nosed, slab- 

 sided prairie rooters would be more efficient 

 than the short-nosed, well-barreled modern 

 breeds ; and by selecting such individuals as 

 have the longest noses and the laukest sides, an 

 improved breed might gradually be formed, 

 which could pick up a wormy peach lying at a 

 distance of ten yards, without stirring out of 

 its tracks I So far as our own observation goes, 

 thei-e are excellent materials for the scientific 

 elaboration of such blooded stock, running at 

 large throughout the lanes and commons of 

 Egypt. 



Solon Robinson, iu the Transactions of the 

 New York Farmers' Club, has solemnly declared 

 that, rather than allow hogs the range of 

 his orchard, he would go without fruit for 

 the remaining term of his natural life. But 

 jSIr. Robinson, though in the main very good 

 authority, is on some few points strangely 

 notional and crotchetv. For example, not hav- 

 ing the fear of Benjamin Franklin before his 



