Mr. Older:  I had the pleasure of visiting this plant with Mr. Wedge, and this man had quite a good many boxes of as fine apples as you would wish to see.  This was along the latter part of February, and they were in fine condition.  He had a lot of Jonathans and Yankees and some other varieties I don’t remember, grown on top-worked trees there.

The Plum Curculio.

EDWARD A. NELSON, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

(Prize Winner at Gideon Memorial Contest.)

The small crescent-shaped punctures, so common on apples, plums, peaches and other fruits, are made by a small snout-beetle known as the plum curculio.  The beetles issue from their winter quarters at about the time the trees are in full bloom and feed on the tender foliage, buds and blossoms.  Later they attack the newly set fruit, cutting small circular holes through the skin in feeding, while the females, in the operation of egg-laying, make the crescentic cuts so characteristic of this species.  The egg, deposited under the skin of the fruit, soon hatches into a very small whitish larva or grub, which makes its way into the flesh of the fruit.  Here it feeds greedily and grows rapidly, becoming, in the course of two weeks, the fat, dirty white “worm” so well known among fruit growers.

The curculio is a native of North America and for more than 150 years has been known as an enemy of fruits.  Our early horticultural literature abounds with reference to its depredations.  In more recent times the great increase in planting of fruits, brought about to supply the increased demand, has permitted it to become much more abundant than formerly, and the plum curculio constitutes at the present time one of the most serious insect enemies of orchard fruits.  Statistics gathered of its depredations show that it is distributed over much of the area of the United States.  Its western limit is, roughly, a line drawn through the centers of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.  East of this line the entire United States is infested except the southern third of Florida and the northern half of Maine.

Is the plum curculio causing much damage to the fruit growing industry of this country?  That it is is shown by the National Conservation Committee in its report in Volume III, page 309, where it states that the average annual loss in late years to only three fruits is as follows: 

Apples $3,257,806

Peaches 4,088,814

Plums             1,244,149
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Grand Total      $8,590,769

Just think of it!  A total loss each year to only three fruits of over $8,500,000.  This amount is a heavy drain upon the fruit growing industry of this country.  During the past twenty-five or thirty years the total damage caused by this insect, to the various fruits which it attacks, would, on a conservative estimate, probably be not less than $100,000,000.

These figures show the absolute need of the adoption of effective remedial measures against this insect so as to lessen this loss.  But before we can hope to combat this insect systematically and successfully it is necessary to know its life history and habits.