196 



FIG CULTURE 



and if found in time the pests should be dug out 

 with a knife or killed by injecting some deadly 

 liquid into their holes. Numerous solutions are on 

 the market from which one can be selected to ex- 

 terminate them. "Fig growing in Louisiana would 

 be a grand success were it not for the fig borer, 

 which frequently destroys the trees." (La. Bull., 

 42.) Later bulletins from the same station deny 

 the seriousness of this pest. 



BEETLES. 



Coleopterous insects puncture the skin and flesh 

 of all figs, and while the commercial varieties are 

 not ruined by them the fruit is impaired in ap- 

 pearance by the brown and white spots which re- 

 sult ; many pickers calling such figs "pock marked. " 

 So rapidly do the bugs multiply that it is difficult 

 to find unaffected fruit in any orchard late in the 

 season. They suck an inconsequential amount of 

 juice, which is diluted with a liquid first deposited 

 near the skin, but it is impossible to make such figs 

 into the best preserves without peeling them. As 

 the beetles insert their proboses some distance be- 

 fore beginning to withdraw juice they cannot be 

 caught with arsenical powders, or by spraying, and 

 treatment necessarily consists in collecting the pests 

 by bait, with a light at night, or in moss thrown on 

 the ground, and killing them by hand. 



