The Ottawa free trader., 1877-02-10
A New Way to Fight Curculios.

The growing of plums has resulted in the
smallest remuneration ana has been the mos,
unsuccessful of all other fruits. The princi
pal cause of failure has been the depredations
by the curculio. The practice of jarring the
trees and catching and killing the curculio
has long been practiced, but only with partial
| success These insects can only be caught
when the weather Is TO cool for them to ty
that is. when the thermometer indicates a
temperature of 50 degrees; above this, they
| fly as do most other insects, and cannot be
caught by the jarring process. Thus it is
plain to be seen that when the heat is above
S5 degrees, and when the circulio is actually
engaged in singing the fruit, it cannot be
taken, but will ay from tree to tree, or Will
merely rise and again alight to its destructive
work
Some few years ago | saw where man by
the name of PinIoe, by accident got one OF
his plum trees smoked with burning gas tar,
and on which tree he failed for some days to
catch any curculiO. gave this matter some
thought, and concluded to try this possible
remedy, as l had fine plum orchard, but al.
ways lost the fruit by curcullo stings. / had
always relied on catching the insects IN
sheets, but as this remedy could at least be
but partially successful seldom succeeded
in getting much fruit.
Dul IuR tlC oulhulCl Va lOtf III III
the gas house several gallons of coal or gas
tar. put about quart into long handled
stew-pan, and with few shavings and a
match soon had Dense black smoke. This
carried under my plum trees so that the
dense smoke pervaded all parts of the tree
My first effort was very gratifying in seeing
insects of all sorts hurry out of the tree. Ants
came running down the tree, various kinds
of worms and spiders letting themselves down
by their webs, and all winged insects flying
out and thus leaving the trees deserted of all
insect life. | spent about half an hour in
smoking forty.two trees; and this repeated
three or four times each week, unless rain
had washed off the smudge, when again re.
peated the smoking.
After my first efforts tried the jarring pro.
cess but invariably failed to catch or see a
single specimen OF the curculio. l continued
this operation until near the time of rlpening,
and got my first crop of plums, over thirty
bushels.
The theory of this experiment is, that the
coal tar smoke is OF a somewhat greasy nature,
and thus adheres to the tree and foliage, and
It's stencil being very offensive to all animal
life, the insects were in no hurry to return TO
these offensive smelling trees.
The whole cost of coal tar for these 12 trees
during the summer was less than So. l be-
gan the smoking little too late, after had
tried for some time the jarrng into the sheet,
and, therefore some OF the fruit had been
stung, or my crop of ripe plums would have
been'still greater.
During 1875 the plum crop was an entire
failure and |, therefore, had no opportunity
to continue this experiment; but the summer
of 1876 brought large plum crop, and l at
once resorted to my favorite remedy. Icom.
menced smoking the trees as soon as the
pums were the size of a hazlenut and con-
tnued up to ripening time, and not single
curcullo sting was to be seen on any fruit, the
trees of which were treated to the coal-tar
smoke. purposely left several trees of off
terent varieties nnsmoked, and all the plums
except one sort were stung and dropped be.
fore ripening.
| never saw the curcullo so abundant as
they were last summer; even the Miner, that
IS supposed to be free from harm by this IN
sect, was so badly stung that they nearly all
dropped off before ripening.
d. w. KAUFMAN.
Des Molnes, Iowa.