56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



orchards. The conservative scientist will at least insist on more 

 data before recommending this treatment unreservedly. 



Conclusion. Summarizing, we have been unable to demonstrate 

 any very marked benefit from the use of a sweetened poison for the 

 destruction of apple maggot flies, though more extended work may 

 give very different results. Serious infestations by apple maggot 

 can be controlled, so far as known, in no better way than by collect- 

 ing and destroying the infested fruit before the maggots have an 

 opportunity to escape. This work should be done, according to 

 careful investigations carried out by Prof. W. C. O'Kane, 1 every 

 three days in the case of the late summer and early fall varieties 

 and once a week for the later apples. This is somewhat laborious 

 unless live stock, such as sheep or hogs, can be allowed to run under 

 infested trees. It is quite possible that a few varieties of early apples 

 adjacent to commercial orchards, might be used as traps for the 

 attracting of the flies and then the pest effectively checked through 

 the destruction of the fruit as indicated above. The difficulty is 

 that in many places the specially attractive trees are allowed to 

 serve as breeding places and centers for dispersal instead of being 

 employed as a valuable means for controlling this pest. Good orchard 

 practice, both cultivation and spraying, is undoubtedly helpful and 

 as a supplementary measure, in the case of bad infestations, some 

 benefit should be derived from the use of the sweetened poison. 



PEAR THRIPS 

 Taenioihrips pyri Daniel 



The severe and local injuries by this pest have been very much 

 the same as during the last two or three years. By far the greater 

 damage has been in pear orchards in the immediate vicinity of 

 Hudson and farther south, the extensive pear-growing section of 

 Kinderhook and Muitzeskill being nearly, if not entirely, free from 

 this destructive insect. In Germantown this pest is very local, 

 being extremely severe in some orchards and hardly noticeable in 

 others, though a portion of this is doubtless explainable by differ- 

 ences in treatment. Similar restricted outbreaks also occurred in 

 the vicinity of Poughkeepsie. 



This insect attacks by preference Seckle and Bartlett pear trees, 

 though other varieties are occasionally badly damaged. 



Signs of infestation. The most evident signs of this insect's 

 presence are the sticky buds, the brown, blasted appearance of the 



1 N. H. Agric. Exp. Sta. Bui. 171, 1914. 



