6 + 



Annals of Horticulture. 



perimenters, have been the first in recommending arsenites for 

 the curculio. It is impossible to trace the practice of spray- 

 ing for the curculio to its origin, or to say definitely who first 

 advanced the idea. The practice is mostly, however, a result 

 of the general success of arsenites in treatment of the codlin 

 moth, although there is record of its suggestion before the 

 spray was used upon the apple.* So long ago as 1871 G. M. 

 Smith, of Wisconsin, recommended this remedy to the Saint 

 Joseph, Michigan, Horticultural Society, f and there have been 

 occasional recommendations of a similar character through the 

 press in the meantime. The first scientist to recommend the 

 arsenites for the curculio appears to have been Riley, who 

 urged the matter before the Mississippi Valley Horticultural 

 Society at New Orleans early in 1885. In 1885, Forbes, of 

 Illinois, began experiments upon the efficiency of spraying for 

 the codlin moth, and incidentally he made observations upon 

 its effect upon curculios which had attacked the apples. It 

 was found that over two-thirds of the apples liable to attack 

 by codlin moth were saved, and over half of those liable to the 

 attacks of the plum curculio. The first distinct record by a 

 scientist of the application of the spray to stone fruits for the 

 express purpose of combatting the curculio appears to be that 

 made by Cook, in 1887 \\ 



"Paris green in the proportion of one tablespoonful to six gallons of 

 water was very thoroughly sprayed upon four plum trees May 18th. The 

 petals had all fallen, but the dried calyxes still clung to the fruit. On 

 August 20th the trees were visited, when it was found that the two treated 

 trees of the Wild Goose variety had dropped all their fruit, as had the un- 

 treated trees of the same kind. Another treated tree of a yellow variety was 

 loaded with plums, of which only fifteen per cent, were stung, and those 

 not badly. The fourth treated was a purple variety, and had not less than 

 seventy-five per cent, of its fruit badly stung." 



This test possesses little value from the fact that untreated 

 trees do not appear to have been compared with the sprayed 

 trees ; yet the statements came from so prominent an authority 

 that attention was no doubt called to the matter. 



Saunders§ also made statements in 1887 concerning the 



* Spray of arsenical substances appears to have been first recommended for the destruction 

 of the canker worm, and it was in combatting this insect that its effects upon the codlin moth 

 were observed. LeBaron recommended Paris green for the canker worm as early as 1872. 

 It was near the close of that decade that statements concerning the killing of the codlin moth 

 by Paris green began to gain currency. Cook, of Michigan, was the first entomologist to 

 confirm the statements. 



f Riley, Rep. Com. Agr. 1888, 69. \ Rep. Mich. Bd. Agr. 1887, 40. 



§Rep. Fruit Growers' Ass., Out, 1887, 58. 



