AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 223 



this pest. The history of its work in other states shows that its 

 ravages have natural limits. Though bad enough, it has not 

 apparently gone on from bad to worse, but has kept within certain 

 bounds. Blies as a class are delicate insects and are liable to 

 many mishaps and great variation in abundance from year to 

 year, Trypeta seems to be confined largely to sheltered locations 

 and sandy soil, and does not from its nature spread rapidly from 

 tree to tree, variety to variety, orchard to orchard. 



To discourage us is the fact that a new supply of the pest is 

 yearly brought into the State in imported fruit and every railroad 

 town is liable to become a generative center for the pest. Again, 

 unscrupulous orchardists at home, to save loss, knowingly market 

 infested domestic fruit. Infested fruit may be marketed without 

 knowing it. In both cases it is apt to be dumped on the ground 

 and spread the pest. The sale of fruit from one part of the State 

 to another is liable to hasten the spread of the flies. 



All things considered, we firmly believe the ravages of this 

 insect can be controlled, if we avail ourselves of the known 

 means to check it. Below is a detailed consideration of useless, 

 preventive and direct methods of coping with the pest. 



Useless Methods. 



1. Spraying early in the season when the apples are small 

 would do no good, as the flies are not on the wing until July, 

 when the early fruit is fully half or two-thirds grown, and too 

 large too spray with safety. Spraying, even if safe, would do no 

 good as the eggs are inserted under the peel, and the young larvae 

 in them being protected by a shell are beyond the reach of poisons. 

 The apparent decrease of Trypeta after spraying, mentioned by 

 Mr. Augur in Pomological Society Report, 1887, page 101, must 

 be accounted for by another and independent cause. 



2. In confinement the flies are very fond of sugar, yet about 

 the trees, where other flies of several species were regaling them- 

 selves on apple juice, we did not see a single Trypeta fly feeding. 

 Sweets poisoned with arsenious acid and corrosive sublimate, and 

 placed on paper in shallow pans in the trees failed to attract 

 them. 



3. Sticky fly papers seem to be useless. We exposed several 

 sheets in the branches of a tree where the flies were thick, for 

 three days, and only took a single Trypeta fly. 



4. It has been suggested "that a practical way to defeat the 



3 M 



