failure owing to curculio and brown rot, a serious financial condition 
loomed up in the Georgia peach belt at the close of the 1920 season, 
which caused the growers to become greatly alarmed over the situa- 
tion. For many years growers had kept their fruit practically free 
from these pests by spraying according to methods and schedules 
worked out and successfully put into practice by Quaintance (3), 3 
Scott and Ayres (5), Scott and Quaintance (6), and Chase (1, 2). 
The losses of 1919 and 1920, however, showed that additional means 
of control were necessary, at least for the time being or until losses 
not more than normal again became the rule. 
At the urgent request of the growers for assistance in solving the 
problem then threatening the Georgia peach industry, the Bureau 
of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture 
established, in the fall of 1920, a field station at Fort Valle3 T , Ga., 
to undertake a study of the life history and control of the curculio. 
In the spring of 1921, when extensive experiments on spraying and 
dusting peaches were begun, the Georgia State Board of Entomology 
and the Federal Bureau of Plant Industry became cooperating 
agencies. The experiments were continued through four consecutive 
seasons at Fort Valley by the three cooperating organizations. The 
present publication is a report of the results obtained in each season, 
together with recommendations relating to spraying and dusting for 
the control of the curculio, brown rot, and scab, 4 in sections of the 
South where these pests, especially the two first named, are particu- 
larly destructive. 
THE GEORGIA PEACH BELT 
Central Georgia is one of the largest peach-growing regions in the 
United States. Within a radius of 40 miles of Fort Valley, said to 
be the largest peach-shipping station in the world, there are some 
12,000,000 bearing and nonbearing peach trees. 
The topography of the Georgia peach belt varies from generally 
level in the vicinity of Fort Valley to rolling in the more northern 
districts. The elevation varies from 350 to 800 feet above sea level. 
The altitude of Fort Valley is 526 feet. 
The climate of this section is characterized by long, hot summers, 
during which the changes in temperature from day to day are very 
small, and by mild, brief winters. The normal annual temperature 
for the region is about 66° F. High temperatures continue during 
June, July, and August, and September is occasionally the hottest 
month in the year. The average annual rainfall in central Georgia 
is 48 inches (9, p. 2). 
RELATIVE ABUNDANCE OF THE CURCULIO IN GEORGIA FROM 1920 
TO 1924 
Life-history studies of the curculio, which were conducted by the 
senior writer during each of the four years that the experiments on 
spraying and dusting were under way, show that two generations of 
the insect may occur annually in the latitude of central Georgia. 
Quaintance and Jenne (4, p. 126) also report the rearing of a second 
generation of the curculio at Barnesville, Ga., in the summer of 1910. 
3 Reference is made by number (italic) to " Literature cited," p. 32. 
* Caused by Cladosporium carpophilum Thiim. 
