Walnut Husk Maggot

DR. F. L. GAMBRELL, _New York State Agricultural Experiment Station,
Geneva, N. Y._

DR. GAMBRELL: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, some 22 years ago, I
believe it was, I attended one of your meetings at the Experiment
Station in Geneva, and at that time I gave a little talk on the walnut
husk maggot. Perhaps some of you are old enough to have been there and
remembered something about it, or maybe you are old enough so that you
have forgotten as much as I have, so it would be worth talking over
again. At any rate, when the chairman of your program committee wrote
Dr. Chapman, asking him if he might talk, he came to me and said, "Would
you be willing to do this?" I said I'd be willing but I didn't know
whether I'd be able. But finally, the pressure was so great that I said
yes, and I am here.

After I accepted the invitation, I made up my mind that I would like to
bring myself up to date as much as possible on recent developments on
walnuts, so I took the liberty of writing to a lot of our entomological
colleagues and talking to one of your members, Mr. Slate, in the hope
that I might get some more recent information on the maggots, or,
particularly, the control of this walnut husk maggot. I wrote to some 10
or 15 entomologists in 15 states, as well as the United States
Department of Agriculture in Washington and to our neighbors on the
north in Ottawa. I must say that I have had a very fine response from
everybody. They were all very willing to help, but practically all of
them had the same answer: while they knew there was such a bug, they
didn't know too much about it as an economic pest. So that left us all
right in the same boat, with about two exceptions, as when we began. Our
friends to the north in Canada sent some very nice information. We also
had some information from the U. S. Bureau of Entomology and Plant
Quarantine, Washington, D. C., together with some illustrated material.
Also our good friend, Dr. Boyce, at the Citrus Experiment Station, in
Riverside, California, with whom I have discussed the walnut husk maggot
problem quite a few years ago, had a very nice bit of information and
illustrative material which he provided. Incidentally, he is the man who
has been mainly responsible for the development of the walnut husk fly
control program for the nut industry in California. I would certainly
like to take this opportunity to acknowledge any contributions he or the
other people