THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



may be enabled, without much practical diflS.- 

 culty, to distinguish between friends, foes, and 

 neutrals. For lack of this knowledge nothing 

 is more common, than to see a cultivator of the 

 soil overlooking the noxious insects that are 

 preying upon his plants, and making tierce war 

 upon the cannibal and parasitic insects, that a 

 wise Providence has appointed to keep the inju- 

 rious plant-feeders within due bounds. 



HOGS vs. BUGS. 



For some time back the best and most scien- 

 tilic fruitgrowers in the West have been agreed, 

 that practically there are but two methods uni- 

 versally available for fighting the plum curculio ; 

 namely, either 1st, by jarring the trees con- 

 tinually, or 2d, by allowing hogs the run of the 

 orchard all through the summer months. The 

 first method produces an immediate efl'ect, be- 

 cause the "Little Turk" is thus arrested at 

 once in his mischievous career, and prevented 

 from stinging any more fruit. The second 

 method is prospective in its efl'ects, and operates 

 chiefly through the hogs picking up all the 

 Avormy fruit as fast as it falls, and thus pre- 

 venting the larva of the curculio from going 

 underground, and generating a new brood of 

 curculio to sting the fruit at a subsequent period. 



We propose in the following paragraphs, with- 

 out at all undervaluing the first method, to 

 demonstrate by plain, hard, practical facts, that 

 the second of these two methods produces most 

 gratifying results when systematically carried 

 out for a series of years, even without any 

 regular jarring of the trees. The only excep- 

 tion to be made is in the case of the cherry, 

 which, unlike all other stone fruit, does not 

 fall prematurely to the ground when bored up 

 by the larva of the curculio. Hence, so far as 

 regards the cherry, we must depend entirely 

 upon the jarring process to subdue this insect. 



But the plum curculio and its allies are not the 

 only insects that we can successfully attack 

 through the instrumentality of the hog ; neither 

 is stone fruit the only crop that can be pro- 

 tected in this manner. Forthelast fifteen years or 

 so, pip fruit, namely, apples, pears, and quinces, 

 have been annually more or less deteriorated 

 by the apple worm or larva of the codling moth 

 boring into their cores, and filling their flesh with 

 its loathsome excrement. Unlike all the snout 

 beetles that infest stone fruit in America, this 

 is an imported insect, which was originally, 

 about the beginning of the present century, 

 introduced from Europe into the Eastern 

 States, whence it has gradually spread west- 



ward into the Valley of the Mississippi. 

 The facts which we shall presently quote 

 prove that hogs are death upon this insect, as 

 well as upon the plum curculio, picking up the 

 wormy apples as fast as they fall, and greedily 

 devouring them without any squeamish mis- 

 givings as to the wholesomcness of their living 

 inhabitants. It is not at all improbable, either, 

 that hogs may pick up and devour the larva of 

 the codling moth after it has left the fallen fruit, 

 and while it is on its travels for the trunk of 

 the apple tree. For instead of going under- 

 ground, like the larva of the plum curculio, 

 tills larva spins a cocoon above ground, and 

 usually in the chinks of the bark of the tree upon 

 which the apple that nourished it grew. Hence, 

 as the apple worm is of some considerable size, 

 some specimens being almost an inch long, a 

 hungry hog would scarcely consider it " too 

 small business " to pick up and devour as many 

 as could be found traveling along the surface of 

 the earth. 



HOGS vs. CUKCULIOS. 



At Duquoin the Messrs. Winter Brotliers have a 

 peach orchard Of nearly eighty acres. For the past 

 live years they liave alloweu a large drove of hogs to 

 pasture in tliis orchard, that pick up all the fallen fruit. 

 The second year a small share of the fruit was stung, 

 but for the past three years there has been no loss on 

 this account. It would appear that the time has been 

 sufficiently extended to give great jiromisc of success. 

 In the garden, where the hogs are excluded, there are 

 a few ]K'ach trees, but these arc badly stung. 



JIi- A. Mitchell placed ho^s in his peach orchard 

 last ye:ir. an<l his crop is but little alTected . All other 

 peach crops about Duquoin, and all that I saw at Cen- 

 tralia, have the fruit nearly all ruined by the insect. I 

 did not SCO a single plum on any of the trees In this part 

 of the State. Jlost certainly this fact is not only worth 

 knowing', but to be acted "upon without delay. We 

 must bear in mind tliat. when hogs run in a small en- 

 clfisnrc containing trees, they arc very liable to kill 

 them by rooting and tramping the ground; but this is 

 not the case in large orchards where they live on the 

 imperfect fruit. 



David E. Brown, one of the largest truit 

 growers near Alton, South Illinois, has for 

 about live years kept both hogs, and, at times, 

 sheep, in his apple and peach orchards. His 

 fruit is not infested by insects nearly as much 

 as that of his neighbors, although he employs 

 no other precaution whatever to guard against 

 the depredations of fruit-boring insects. His 

 peach trees are also free from borers, though he 

 takes no pains to worm his trees. His hogs 

 keep in good condition on the fallen fruit. These 

 facts were confirmed both by Dr. E. S. Hull and 

 by Mr. B. L. Kingsbury, of Alton. 



Mr. Caughlin, in the Report of the Alton 

 Horticultural Society for July 2, 18G8, "gave 



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