INSECTg. 



sn 



9. The Curculio or Plum Weevil. — ^This is a small grey- 

 ish brown beetle nearly a quarter of an incb long ; the 

 wing covers form two little humps on the back, which give 

 it a roundish appearance, and it has a long crooked snout, 

 well adapted to its destructive propensities. They can' 

 fly, but are not active ; and by jarring the part on which 

 they stand, suddenly, they fall to the ground, draw in 

 their legs and appear dead. It deposits its egg in a 

 semicircular incision which it makes in the young fruit ; 

 it there hatches, eats into the fruit, and causes it to fall 

 while 3^et green. It is the most troublesome of all insects 

 injurious to fruits. In some places it destroys the entire 

 crop of plums, apricots, and nectarines, and attacks even the 

 cherry and the apple. The peach, even, is not wholly 

 exempt, notwithstanding its coat of down. Almost every 

 remedy that ingenuity can devise has been tri^d. This 

 whole book would not contain what has been written on 

 the subject in one year alone. Yet no complete, effectual 

 remedy has been discovered. The strongest liquid appli- 

 cations of lime, soap, and tobacco — the most pow^erful 

 and offensive odors, that repel any other insects, are en- 

 tirely harmless and inoffensive to the curculio. There 

 seem to be really but two means worthy of being re- 

 sorted to. One is, to pave, or in some other way harden, 

 the surface of the ground, so that the grubs cannot enter 

 it to complete their transformations. This is found effi- 

 cient where no other trees are in the immediate vicinity 

 not paved. We have seen many instances w^here good 

 crops were obtained by this mode. The fact that they are, 

 as a general thing, less troublesome in stiff clay soils than 

 in light porous ones, is alone a proof of the efficacy of a 

 Btiff or impenetrable surface soil. 



Add to this the picking up of fruit containing the grub 

 as soon as it drops from the tree, and before the worm has 

 a chance to escape. 



