Pear Midge. 



the pears, and there were no indications of insect attack, 

 inquiries were made as to the source of the injury. 



An experienced and successful cultivator of pears, whose 

 crops had been regularly destroyed by this midge, wrote 

 that he feared it would be quite impossible to grow pears in 

 his neighbourhood unless some cure were found. He added 

 that his crop of the pear known as " Beurre de I'Assomption " 

 was only two pears, although there was a splendid " set," 

 and that in the previous year there was no fruit at all on these 

 trees. Another grower said that he had seventy bush pear 

 trees on quince stocks, and had picked off 2,000 infested 

 pears from them ; he had standards close by with infested 

 fruit, but he could not hand-pick these. The infested trees 

 were mainly of the sort named Williams' Bon Chretien. 



It would appear that early pears, and those that blossom 

 early, are most liable to this infestation. Williams' Bon 

 Chretien is notoriously subject to it, and in America, where 

 the pear midge is very prevalent and most destructive, the 

 Bartlett pear (identical with Williams' Bon Chretien) is 

 chiefly attacked. Beurre de I'Assomption, earlier than Wil- 

 liams' Bon Chretien, is also frequently seriously affected. 

 Pitmaston Duchesse, Marie Louise, Jargonelle, Souvenir du 

 Congres, all early, and like the Bon Chretien in many 

 respects, are also especially liable to be infested. Infestation 

 has been noticed on later pears, as Josephine de Malines and 

 Catillac, but in a much less degree than on earlier varieties. 

 Only forty yards distant from the pear orchard last alluded 

 to was another containing sixty trees of Durondeau and 

 sixty of Louise Bonne of Jersey, which were quite free from 

 the attack. Louise Bonne of Jersey, although fairly early, 

 is not quite so early as Williams' Bon Chretien. 



In America the Bartlett and the Lawrence are the varieties 

 most commonly attacked, and it is said that in some districts 

 there has lately been a loss of almost all the Lawrence pears, 

 and a large proportion of the Bartletts, the attacks being 

 so serious and frequent that growers in these localities 

 speak of abandoning pear culture altogether. Professor 

 Riley, writing in 1885, considered that the insect had been 

 imported from Europe, as until it was found in 1880, upon a 



