42 THE NUT CULTUKIST. 



mineral paints, will answer very well if a little care is 

 given to keeping down tlie number of insects by remov- 

 ing the larger part of the borers with knife or gouge. 



In recent years a pest known as the "shot^hole 

 borer" {Scolytus rugulosus) has appeared in many and 

 widely separated localities, in both the Eastern and 

 Western States, attacking the almond, peach and plum 

 tree. lb is supposed to have been introduced from 

 Europe with imported nursery stock, and thence rapidly 

 distributed, by similar means, through the country. In 

 its perfect stages it is a minute brown beetle, about one- 

 twelfth of an inch long and one-thirtieth of an inch in 

 diameter. This pest appears about midsummer, boring 

 numerous minute holes through the bark and into the 

 sapwood underneath, and in this the female deposits 

 her eggs, and from these are hatched the little grubs 

 found later feeding on the soft inner bark and alburnous 

 matter beneath it. From every hole made in the bark 

 a small globule of gum will soon appear, drying upon 

 the surface — thence onward until autumn — and glisten- 

 ing in the sun, an immutable sign of the presence of a 

 minute but destructive enemy. 



When the beetles and their eggs are once in posses- 

 sion there is no practical way known of removing them, 

 and the best thing to be done is to cut down and burn 

 every infested tree, and just as soon as it is known to be 

 in this condition. There are also several indigenous 

 species of bark beetles, which will very likely attack 

 almond trees as soon as they are as abundant as peach 

 trees, but all may be destroyed with the same, or very 

 similar weapons and materials. 



What are called preventives consist mainly of sub- 

 stances to be applied to the stems in a semi-liquid form, 

 and of such a nature as to be offensive to the beetles 

 because of their odor, taste, or because so liard that the 

 insects cannot cut through th«m with their mandibles. 



