STATE AGRICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 
607 
But, to return again to the Curculio. 
We have the fact well authenticated, that this insect breeds in these 
black-knot excrescences, with about the same avidity that it does in young 
fruit—notwithstanding these substances arc so unlike each other. 
But the black-knots, like the fruit, have become too far advanced towards 
maturity, by the middle of summer, for these insects to resort to them to 
deposit their eggs therein. And the question thus returns upon us—What 
does the whole generation of these insects, which is bred in the fruit, and 
which comes out of the ground in their perfect state the last of July, now 
do, when there is neither young fruit, or black-knots to accommodate them ? 
Upwards of fifty years ago, Rev. F. V. Melsheimer, who was the best 
acquainted with insects of any man in our country at that day, stated that 
the Curculio was bred in the bark of peach trees, as well as in the fruit— 
but without giving any of the circumstances whereby he had learned this 
fact. And though no observations in confirmation of this statement have 
since been made public, that I am aware, I am strongly of the opinion that 
it is correct—and that these insects resort to the bark of different fruit 
trees to deposit their eggs, when they can find no young fruit to meet their 
wants. 
Four winters since, Mr. L. B. Langworthy, one of the well known nur¬ 
serymen at Rochester, N. Y., sent me a piece of pear tree limb, to examine 
a kind of scurf on the bark, which I found to be produced by a minute 
bark-louse, which I have described under the name of Aspidiotus fur- 
furus. As I was passing the magnifying glass over the bark, I detected 
therein numerous curved incisions, of the same length and shape with the 
crescent-shaped marks made by the Curculio on the surface of fruit; and 
on the convex side of these incisions, the bark was elevated in a little, 
smooth blister-like spot. On opening these spots, a small cavity was there 
found, situated immediately under the cuticle or outer skin of the bark, in 
which, what appeared to be from four to six minute footless worms or mag¬ 
gots, were lying in a row, side by side, their tails towards the slit in the 
bark, and their mouths at the opposite edge of the cavity, ready to eat their 
way onwards in the bark, when the warmth of spring returned to awaken 
will not have wot foot, nono of these knobs will make their appearance upon them. On oast- 
ing over in my mind the different localities where I have observed this malady, I am inolinod 
to think it has been most prevalent and inveterate where either the surfaco or subsoil was of 
tho oharaoter stated. But I havo noticed some of these knots on thrifty plum trees in the 
garden of lion. John II. Boyd, Whitehall, whioh was originally a naked rock sufficiently 
inolined for most perfect drainage, upon which a mellow loam has been drawn, to a depth 
of two to four feet. A. J. Hoermancc, Esq., of Rhinebeck, has also communioated to 
me tho history of a Frost gage growing more than forty yoars in his grounds, and whioh had 
always been perfootly healthy until six years ago, when the black-knot attaokod it. Tho 
affeoted limbs wero promptly and pcrseveringly out off, but without avail, the disease reap¬ 
pearing, till tho whole treo was finally out down, and yet last soason the vigorous young 
sprouts from its roots showed tho same malady clinging to them. It hence appears that 
though thcro is probably much truth in Mr. Dickinson’s theory, it docs not embrace tho 
wholo truth. Tho two casos here relatod favor tho view of Elisha Dorr, Esq., of Albany, 
that it is a rapid, oxuberant growth of the trees that is the foundation of this and several 
other maladies. 
