44 
fruit. On the other hand, it is a distinct advantage if the placenta 
and seeds can be readily removed without scraping the flesh. 
13. Flavor. — This is without doubt the most important factor to 
be considered. Experience has shown that specific flavors can be 
transmitted, and this affords the breeder an opportunity to originate 
and establish varieties of high quality. This flavor can not well be 
described, but is easily recognized and appreciated. 
14. Keeping qualities. — The ideal papaya should be a good keeper, 
and this character has been found often enough in the fruit of indi- 
vidual trees to lend much encouragement to the breeder. 
INSECT PESTS. 
By D. T. Fullaway. 
Insect pests give little trouble in papaya cultivation. About the 
only harmful insects noted on this valuable fruit tree, in the course 
of several years that it has been grown continuously in large numbers 
on the station grounds and almost daily under observation, is a red 
mite {Tetranychus sp.), which occurs in small and very scattered 
colonies on the underside of the leaves and occasionally in excessively 
large numbers on the fruits, and a caterpillar (the larva of the recently 
introduced moth Cryptoblabes aliena), which feeds under a web on 
the floral stems and beneath the flower clusters of this and many 
other economic trees and plants. Neither insect is injurious in the 
sense of seriously affecting the crop of fruit for which the plant is 
grown. The mite would probably be serious, but it seems to be 
held in check by the many predaceous enemies of the small leaf- 
infesting forms which are common on imported economic plants. 
Some of the armored scales, like Saissetia nigra, are occasionally 
found on the trunk and foliage, but only incidentally. Cutworms 
(Agrotis ypsilon) also occasionally attack seedling plants, but this 
pest is so easily controlled in the case of the papaya that it is 
almost negligible as a factor in papaya cultivation. 
o 
