20 
BULLETIN 640, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
as soon as they began to turn white from green in the final ripening 
process, and the larvae, numbering from 2 to 8, were able to become 
nearly full grown by the time the cherries had turned red. The pulp 
surrounding the beans varies from two to seven fifteenths of an inch 
in thickness, or is scarcely thicker than the well-grown larva of the 
fruit fly (see fig. 30, p. 39). Therefore, by the time the cherry is ordi- 
narily ready for harvesting, the larvae have devoured practically all 
the pulp, leaving the seeds hanging more or less loosely within a 
sack comprised of the thin skin of the cherry. If the weather 
happens to be dry, the skin shrivels and hardens about the beans 
and the cherry remains on 
the branch indefinitely and 
resembles those killed by 
disease. However, should 
the harvesting season be 
rainy, the skin decays rap- 
idly, and under the weight 
of the beans the cherry falls 
to the ground . A sligh t j ar 
may at such times cause 
many cherries to fall to the 
ground, where they are 
lost. This type of loss ne- 
cessitates extra pickings 
and greater cost for labor. 
Since the successful intro- 
duction of parasites the 
fruit fly has been so re- 
duced in the coffee field 
that the infestation of 
cherries occurs so late in the ripening process that extra pickings 
are not necessary, and the cherries on reaching the pulping mills 
during the height of the harvesting season contain chiefly eggs 
or young larvae which have not had an opportunity to reduce the 
pulp. 
Badly infested cherries do not pulp as readily when run through 
the pulping mill, and naturally weigh much less than sound cherries. 
(Fig. 16.) The loss in number of cherries in a given weight of badly 
infested fruit has been found to vary at times from 27 to 59 per cent. 
This loss in weight, which takes place only in the worthless pulp, and 
in no way affects the bean, which alone is of commercial value, 
brought about a financial loss to growers who sold their fruit by 
weight according to prices obtained before the fruit fly was intro- 
Fig. 18.— Chinese orange sectioned to shov damage by Medi- 
terranean fruit fly. Chinese oranges, kumquats, tanger- 
ines, satsuma oranges, and many limes are easily and gen- 
erally infested because of then loose peel and lack of a thick 
protective rag. (Original. ) 
