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SHOT-BORER BEETLE. 
97 
“ I have forwarded to you a piece of tree which is infested, in the hope 
that you might point out to me some method of destroying these 
dreadful pests, as I have suffered very much by them the last three 
years. I find that where they once attack a tree it is doomed. It is 
chiefly the Victoria plums that they get at. I am not having any 
pears or apples attacked as yet.” 
The piece of Plum-stem sent was two and a quarter inches across, 
and on splitting it open I found it was infested by the Xyleborus dispar, 
but the tunnels were not nearly as full of beetles as those which I had 
previously examined; there was, however, a larger proportion of males. 
On the 12tli of December Mr. Wright wrote further, “ I will try 
the remedy you propose at once, and fervently hope it will bring me 
some relief from this dreadful pest, this making the third year that I 
have had them. I lost about forty trees last year by this beetle, 
chiefly Victorias, but some few Egg-plums. It has not yet, as far as 
I can see, touched either the Apple or Pear-trees. I find it generally 
in the body of the tree, but in a few cases have found it in the 
branches. I had some, when I found they were attacked and appeared 
dead, sawn off to within three or four inches of the ground, and the 
root is still living. All the trees that I have within a few (and these 
few I had from Evesham eighteen months ago), have been grown on 
the ground. Two or three gardeners near me have also got them, and 
I was in an orchard at Hartlebury, a village about four miles from 
here, and found that they had made a terrible slaughter; and again, at 
another farm in a different direction, seven or eight miles from here, 
I found it was at work.” 
One of the peculiarities of the attack of this beetle recorded by 
recent observers is that it may make its appearance suddenly, do great 
damage, and then as suddenly disappear. This is recorded by Herr 
Bernard Altum in his ‘ Forst Zoologie,’ in which he mentions that he 
has himself found many kinds of deciduous trees infested by it to a 
considerable degree, namely, Apple, Pear, Plum, many kinds of Alder, 
Beech, Oak, Chestnut, Maple and Hawthorn. 
Schmidberger notes it in his experience as especially infesting 
Apple-trees, though also found to some small amount in Plum-trees ; 
and in the case of the attack at Toddington Captain Corbett informed 
me that it appeared up to the date of writing, Sept. 17th, only to have 
affected the Pershore Plum-trees, which is, as he remarks, “ a curious 
circumstance, as it is originally a wild plum and very hardy.” Mr. 0. 
Janson tells me that he only met with it in the New Forest in Hants. 
In every case submitted to me the attacked trees were free from 
scale and moss, and apparently perfectly healthy. 
y Prevention and remedy. Where the trees attacked are still young, 
—that is, still only (as at Toddington), about three quarters of an inch 
H 
