654 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 16 
A NEW CHERRY PEST. 
Danger from a Nameless Insect. 
SOMETHING NEW.—Heretofore, all “wormy” 
cherries have been credited to the work of the grubs 
of the Plum curculio. During the Summer, however, 
this old offender has had a rival in Massachusetts, and 
at Geneva and Ithaca, in New York. Early in June, 
consumers of this delicious fruit in these localities 
began to complain that from one-fourth to one-third 
of the cherries were found to contain small white 
worms or maggots, which were quite unlike the grubs 
of the Plum curculio usually found in "wormy” cher¬ 
ries. Oftentimes the fairest and best-appearing fruits, 
which showed no Indications of being attacked by in¬ 
sects, were found to be infested with these maggots. 
One fruit-grower picked several quarts of apparently 
the finest cherries he had, and took them home for his 
wife to can. Upon pitting them, she found that two 
or more quarts of these fine-appearing fruits con¬ 
tained maggots. When we received samples of these 
maggot-infested cherries early in July, lit was the first 
we had ever seen, and apparently, there was no record 
of cherries in this country having been infested with 
maggots. A careful search through the economic lit¬ 
erature has revealed but one or two records of mag¬ 
gots ever having been found in cherries in this coun¬ 
try. In one case, the maggots were supposed to be 
the well-known Apple maggot. 
HOW HE ACTS.—We have many of the insects now 
undergoing their transformations in their cages here 
in the Insectary, but we shall not be able to get the 
adult form until next Spring, hence it will be impos¬ 
sible definitely to determine whether this insect is a 
new bug to scientists, or whether it is an old bug in a 
new role, or whether it is some old insect which has 
never before been recorded as injurious. We have 
found, however, upon infested cherry trees, certain 
small flies (one of which is shown natural size in 
Pig. 244), which we believe to be the adult form of 
this new cherry pest, but we are not sure. The flies 
we found prove to have been described many years 
ago, but nothing has been known of their life-story. 
We thus believe that we have in this Cherry fruit-fly 
a new pest to harass the already much-pestered fruit¬ 
grower. 
Our investigations upon this insect began too late 
to enable us to learn much of its habits. We believe, 
however, that the mother fly sticks her eggs through 
and just beneath the skin of the cherry, about the 
time it begins to turn red. This egg soon hatches 
into a minute maggot, which at once tunnels its way 
through the flesh of the cherry toward the pit, where 
it continues to revel in the juicy flesh, forming a rot¬ 
ten cavity there. A section of one of these infested 
cherries is shown enlarged in Fig. 244. The rotten 
cavity is to be seen near the pit, and also the maggot, 
which has just crawled from the cavity. One of the 
maggots is shown natural size, just above the cherry. 
As I have stated above, the fairest appearing cherries 
may contain these maggots. Usually, only one mag¬ 
got is found in each cherry. The maggots, evidently, 
do not get full-grown before the fruit is picked, and 
apparently, the infested fruits do not fall from the 
trees, as in the case of apples Infested with the Apple 
maggot. We have seen many of the infested fruits 
hang on the trees until one side of the cherry sinks in 
with rot, and the maggots crawl out and drop to the 
ground. The maggots get into the ground immediate¬ 
ly after leaving the fruits, and there quickly change 
into a tough, brown, lifeless object, known as a pu- 
parium. In this state, the insect remains through the 
Winter, finally transforming and emerging in the 
Spring as a pretty little fly, shown in the figure. 
WHAT TO DO.—This new cherry pest will prove 
an exceedingly difficult one to control, as there seems 
no possible chance of hitting it with a spray of any 
kind, and as the infested fruits apparently do not 
drop to the ground before the maggots leave them. 
Of course, we have had no opportunity to carry on 
any experiments against the insect, but our antipodal 
neighbors in Australia, New Zealand, and South 
Africa, where similar flies infest their-fruits, have 
carried on extensive experiments against them. From 
their results, we glean that no bad-smelling sub¬ 
stances, used either as a spray or suspended in the 
trees, will have any effect upon preventing the flies 
from laying their eggs in the fruits. Evidently, also, 
cultivation will not control the insect, for the or¬ 
chards in which it has appeared this Summer, are 
owned by our most progressive fruit growers, who 
cultivate thoroughly. At present, then, we are unable 
to suggest any practicable method of dealing with 
this insect except the total destruction of the crop of 
fruit on the Infested trees, for one season, about the 
time of picking fruit. Of course, the picked fruit, 
which is shipped away to consumers, will undoubt¬ 
edly carry most of the maggots with it out of the 
orchards in which they were born, but such fruit will 
be a constant menace to other orchards, and the in¬ 
sect will be perpetuated in the many fruits which are 
not picked from the trees. 
It is quite probable, also, that this insect breeds 
normally in either wild cherries, or some similar 
fruits. The Cherry fruit-fly of Europe breeds in sev¬ 
eral kinds of wild fruits. I would be glad to hear 
from any one who happens to have met with this new 
pest in cherries this Summer, or at any previous time. 
The Cornell Experiment Station will shortly publish 
a preliminary report or bulletin upon the insect, giv¬ 
ing more in detail what I have simply outlined above. 
I propose for this new cherry pest the popular name 
of Cherry fruit-fly, and think that its scientific name 
is Rhagoletis cingulata. M. v. slingerland. 
THOSE WHO BUY FERTILIZERS. 
In my acquaintance are several persons who buy 
fertilizers in different ways, and they are but types of 
many others. The first buys on smell; the ranker the 
smell, the better the fertilizer. A bag of sand well 
THE CHERRY FRUIT-FLY. Fig. 244. 
mixed with a couple of rotten fish would suit him. 
He doesn’t know that odor simply means oxidation or 
decay, and doesn’t Indicate any value in the fer¬ 
tilizer. It would be safer to buy the other way, the 
less smell the better the fertilizer. 
Another, and he’s a wealthy farmer, buys 100, and 
sometimes 150 pounds, for an acre of potatoes, and 
says that he cannot make fertilizers pay. He doesn’t 
realize that there are 43,560 square feet in an acre, 
and that if he divides that fertilizer, each foot will get 
an infinitesimal amount. 
Another wants cheap fertilizer, no matter about the 
ingredients, so long as it’s cheap. He doesn’t see 
A NEW GIDEON SEEDLING. Fig. 245. 
See Rukalisms, Page 658. 
that it costs as much to mix and bag the cheap stuff, 
that the freight is just the same as on the high-grade 
goods, that the commissions are generally larger on 
that class of goods, that it costs him just as much 
per ton to haul and apply that fertilizer, as it would 
the best made. He generally gets a fertilizer that 
contains plenty of low-grade tankage, undissolved 
S. C. rock, phosphate and kainit. It always runs high 
in phosphoric acid and low in nitrogen and potash. 
He doesn’t know whether his land needs phosphoric 
acid or not; he is after “cheap” fertilizer (he calls it 
“phosphate”), and he gets it. Strange to say, how¬ 
ever, he sometimes gets a fair crop. 
Then there’s the agent man, who takes the agency 
so as to get his fertilizer cheap, and the company that 
allows the largest commission and the longest time 
gets his order. But the large commission and the 
long time necessitate a cheap fertilizer. He spends 
considerable time in the Spring, which ought to be 
used on his farm, trying to sell some of it. The agent 
was a good talker, and persuaded him to sign for a 
larger order than he really thought he could sell. 
It’s an inferior article, and the intelligent farmers 
know it, so he can sell only to the third-rate men, 
who use small quantities, and trust them until Fall 
for his pay. Before his collections are all made— 
some of them haven’t paid him yet—his fertilizer has 
been pretty expensive, though he doesn’t always real¬ 
ize it. 
Still another, who knows that gold dollars can’t be 
bought for 90 cents. He buys the best grades possi¬ 
ble, uses them liberally, makes a profit from them, 
and is satisfied. 
Lastly, is the man who makes a thorough study of 
the question. You may find, perhaps, in his home, 
Sempers’s Manures and How to Make Them, or Voor- 
hees’s Fertilizers. He knows what crops he is going 
to plant and the kind of soil in his different fields. 
He knows what he wants, and accordingly, buys the 
best grade of chemicals early in the season, mixes 
them when other work is slack, or on rainy days, 
when outdoor work is impossible. He has high-grade 
fertilizers that suit his soils and crops, and pay a 
profit. He saves several dollars a ton in cost of fer¬ 
tilizer over the last man, and a much greater sum 
over the others. The fertilizer men don’t like the 
last man, but in- spite of their opposition, his number 
is increasing. This isn’t a fancy sketch; all these 
men can be found within five miles of our place. To 
which class do you belong? h. g. m. 
LIME FROM THE SUGAR FACTORIES. 
What Is It Worth for Fertilizing ? 
What is the value of refuse lime from a beet-sugar fac¬ 
tory, as a fertilizer? Will it be a good fertilizer for 
young apple trees? My soil is a gravelly loam. f. b. s. 
Westmoreland N. Y. 
ITS COMPOSITION.—The value of refuse lime from 
beet-sugar factories varies widely, depending chiefly 
upon the amount of water which it contains. It would 
be a good plan for F. B. S. to secure an average sam¬ 
ple of material, and send it to the Experiment Station 
at Geneva, or at Ithaca, for analysis. Much of the 
lime is usually in the same form as in water-slaked 
lime, and most of the remainder is present as car¬ 
bonate of lime. The longer the material has been ex¬ 
posed to the air, the greater is the quantity of the 
lime which has united with carbonic acid to form 
carbonate of lime. Aside from lime, such waste 
usually contains small quantities of nitrogen, phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash, which render it even more 
valuable than otherwise. Heinrich, a recognized Ger¬ 
man authority on this subject, gives the following 
as the result of eight analyses: 
Average Range In 
composition. composition. 
Per cent. Per cent. 
Lime .22.0 15.0 to 30.0 
Phosphoric acid . 1.1 0.5 “ 1.5 
Potash .0.2 0.1 “ 0.3 
Nitrogen . 0.3 0.1 “ 0.4 
Water .45.00 35.0 “ 60.0 
Ullmann gives instances where only 18 per cent of 
lime was present. Taking the average composition 
given above as a basis, the value of the phosphoric 
acid, estimated at four cents per pound, would be 
88 cents, that of the potash, estimated at 4% cents, 
would be 17 cents, and that of the nitrogen, at 13 
cents, would be 78 cents, making a total of $1.83, not 
including the lime. Estimating the lime upon the 
basis of $8 per ton for good burned lime, the lime in 
one ton would have a value of $1.85. Based upon $6 
per ton for the lime, it would have a value of $1.39. 
This would make the total value per ton as follows: 
Lime based upon $8.00 per ton for burned lime..$3.68 
“ “ “ $6.00 “ “ “ “ “ .. 3.22 
HOW TO USE IT.—This lime waste should never 
be spread upon the surface of the ground while it is 
in a wet condition, or it will cake and interfere with 
its proper incorporation with the soil. It should not 
be put in heaps upon grass where it is desired that 
the grass should not be destroyed. It is best to apply 
it in small piles in the late Autumn, and allow it to 
freeze and lie until Spring. It then crumbles, and is 
spread and worked into the soil as thoroughly as 
possible. If preferred, it may be placed in some con¬ 
venient place In long piles, and worked over at inter¬ 
vals of a few weeks, by which process it becomes fit 
to apply after a few months. 
Aside from the difficulty of applying it and the 
small amount of lime actually present, the use of this 
material is satisfactory. In all probability, the lime, 
if applied at the rate of from two to five tons per 
acre, would prove beneficial to young apple trees, 
though they seem to be helped by lime much less than 
quinces, Japan plums or the Black Tartarian cherry. 
I’ROF. II. J. WHEELER. 
The California fruit inspectors make lively times in 
the fruit markets. They are authorized to destroy fruit 
containing the Codling worm, and many loads of fruit 
that would sell in this country are often destroyed. 
