Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-07-31
The Enemies of Fruit.

very serious and alarming matter, not only to
fruit growers but to fruit-consumers as well
1t is in truth matter that affects one of the
heretofore most promising productive indus
tries of the State, and calls for something
more than a passing notice. California has
been looming up for the past ten or fifteen
wears as the wonder of the world in fruit
growing, and as the source from whence
large portions of the world must draw their
fruit supply. Until within a few years we
were exempt from all the drawbacks that had
visited other fruit-producing countries !;
but now that the common fruit-enemies
have made their appearance among US
they are increasing so rapidly and making
such serious inroads upon the amount of fruit
produced, as to raise serious questions as to
the futurel of the business. Large fruit
growers are talking seriously of abandoning
the apple altogether to try in this way to
starve out the codling moth, so that the pear
may be spared This proposition is based
upon the theory that the apple is necessary to
the continued existence of the moth-that
while the Larvae of the moth does great dam
age to the pear as well as the apple, the insect
would die out if the apple were not found as a
breeding harbor While we believe the apple
is the more acceptable fruit for the worm to
hatch out and live in, we believe that mere
roofing up or destroying of the apple
would not save the pear, but that the
whole destructive energies of the insect would
be directed to the pear in the absence of the
apple, and thus both would be destroyed.
Another proposition is to have all the pears
and apples stripped from the trees by gen.
eral understanding, and perhaps by law to
that effect, for one year-leaving the trees to
grow one year without fruit. This PROPOSE;
ton is made upon the theory that the apples
and pears are necessity to the breeding and
propagation of the worm, and that depriving
them of food for one year would starve them
all out and get rid of them until again intro
duced. We have but little doubt that if all
the pears and apples in the State could
be destroyed for any one year that
the worms would thereby be greatly
reduced in numbers. But does any one
know that the worm breeds in and lives
upon no other product besides apples and
pears? Would it not be better to study the
habits of the insect little more closely before
entering upon so great sacrifice as the de-
struction of all the apple trees on the one
hand, or all the apples and pears for one year
on the other? One thing is certain, and we
believe all thoughtful and practical fruit
growers agree on this, that the worms must
be destroyed, or they will destroy the apples
and pears. But while the fruit-producers in
this section of the State are SO absorbed in
the destruction of the codling moth, in other
sections of the State they are wrestling with
other equally threatening fruit enemies.
In San Jose, for instance, the apple scale
insect is running large and valuable
orchards. At meeting of the fruit-growers
of that city few days since, called especially
to organize horticultural society, one gen.
fleman said that those who had proposed to
form a society found their interests menaced
by destroying insects; that if the scale bug
could not be destroyed many large and valu-
able orchards would have to be abandoned.
He thought there should be legislation on
the subject, and that the county Supervisors
should be vested with authority to have
remedial measures adopted and enforced.
la discussing remedies, one gentleman said he
had been making experiments. His first
experiment was an unsuccessful one. He
selected one acre of infested trees and used on
them a wash composed of lime whale oil,
kerosene and concentrated I've, but without
effect He next made a mixture of gasoline,
whale oil and I've, and applied it with
brush. His neighbors followed the example,
and wherever this wash was applied the
scales and bugs disappeared The proper
tions of the compound were as follows:
About one can of concentrated lye, one pint
of gasoline and one pint of OIL The appli-
cation was made in June. He said some.
thing was needed to cut the scale, and the
gasoline did this, letting the lye and oil in
upon the little insects and destroying them.
In Santa Barbara the olive trees are suffer
ing, and if not cared for will be destroyed by
a scale bug peculiar to them. The Secretary
of the Santa Barbara Horticultural Society
states that unless the olive trees are looked
after closely, and washed each year, these in
sects will surely cause their early ruin. The
remedy found by numerous experiments to
be effectual on the olive tree is whale oil
soapsuds and carbolic acid, applied semi
annually. Old trees nearly ruined with these
bugs have been completely renovated and made
as good as new by cutting the stem off at the
soil and covering the stump with thick coat
OF whitewash, aud then washing the new
sprouts with suds and acid. The orange is
also subject to attacks by scale bugs of two
kinds, the black and the red. The Riverside
Press says these can be killed. and the trees
preserved, by the use of wash composed of
one part of kerosene and forty parts water,
applied in June and July, when the insects
are young and the scales tender Thus it
seems, that while our orchards are threat
ened in all parts of the State with one enemy
or another in no place have these enemies
appeared any length of time before some one
interested has found oct a remedy and proved
its efficacy by actual successful experiment.
The cooling moth is an old enemy, and many
remedies have been suggested and tried with
more or less effect, but to completely get rid
of it will prove very difficult mat
ter. 1t is not so easily found
and cannot be so surely attacked and routed
as the various kinds of scalebues, because it
is in one stage flying insect. 1t can, how
ever, be pretty well kept down by adaptingthe
remedial work to the habits of the worm,
by wrapping the stems of orchard trees with
paper traps in the spring of the year to pre-
vent the worms from ascending, by scraping
the rough bark from the trees and applying
wash Of whale-oil, soap and sulphur, and by
destroying the wormy fruit as it falls from
the trees and before the worms leave it. We
do not believe it necessary to resort to so
radical measures as digging up the apple
orchards, or destroying for one year all the
apDles and pears in the State The exhihi