222 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1917. 



dumped and spread out on the street. At some distance from 

 the currant bushes, new soil was loaded on the wheel-barrow and 

 replaced around the shrubs. One man removed and replaced 

 the earth in half a day. 



The soil spread out on the street was soon converted into 

 dust. Two weeks after the ground was dumped on the street, 

 the dusty soil was transferred into breeding cages in an insect- 

 house. Not a single fly emerged from this material. 



A cage, with sides and top made of wire netting used for 

 mosquito screen, was placed over the thirteenth currant bush. 

 On May 15, 1915, the soil within the cage was treated with one 

 part of carbolic acid emulsion to fifty parts of water at the rate 

 of one-half gallon per square foot. On May 29, a number of 

 currant fruit flies were found in the cage and a second application 

 of the formula was given. A few specimens of this insect con- 

 tinued to emerge until June 11. 



The currants w^ere examined from time to time and it 

 required a search to find a maggoty fruit, even though the 

 infested prematurely ripened red berries are very conspicuous 

 in the bunches of green currants. It must be noted, however, 

 that no data could be obtained as to the infestation of the cur- 

 rants during previous years. Twenty-one quarts of currants 

 were picked from the 13 bushes. This short crop was probably 

 due to the fact that the bushes had been neglected for years, 

 and all of the old wood and also branches containing borers had 

 been pruned. The shrubs wxre not isolated, for in one of the 

 dooryards at a distance of about 200 feet, 'were currant and 

 gooseberry bushes with practically all of the fruit infested. 



Another method of control suggested as already stated was 

 to remove and deposit the surface soil around currant and goose- 

 berry bushes in some exposed place. In the second experiment 

 50 puparia were exposed to the sunshine on the surface of the 

 ground below a cage on May 8, 1914. Fourteen adults emerged 

 from May 25-June 6, under these conditions. 



In the removal of the dirt under the bushes, one method 

 suggested, as already mentioned, was to deeply bury this soil. 

 A third experiment was performed to determine the distance 

 that the fruit flies upon issuing from puparia, are able to burrow 

 through ground under field conditions. Holes, one-half, one, 

 two, and three feet deep were dug in clay soil. Fifty puparia 



