complete girdling is unusual, but growth sometime ceases above the
groove, new limbs being shot out from below."

The only satisfactory means of controlling this pest is to go carefully
over the tree and dig out the borers. The trees should be examined from
time to time in order to keep them free from borers.

INSECTS ATTACKING THE FRUIT.

THE PECAN WEEVIL (_Balantinus caryae_): In some localities considerable
damage has been caused by the pecan weevil. The insect is a small,
brownish-black snout beetle, somewhat less than one-half inch in length.
The proboscis or snout is slender and as long as the body. With this
proboscis the beetle bores a very small hole through the husk and shell
of the immature pecan to the kernel, and at the bottom deposits an egg.
This egg hatches into a larva, which feeds upon the kernel of the nut.
In autumn the larvae, when full grown, bore holes through the shells of
the pecan and enter the ground in which they pass the winter. The next
season they emerge from the earth as fully-matured insects, and about
the month of August deposit their eggs in the nuts.

After the harvesting of the crop the hogs should be allowed to feed
under trees in which the weevil is present, so as to devour any infested
nuts which may have been left on the ground. Poultry may also be of
assistance in destroying the insects after they have entered the ground
to pupate. It is probable that the larvae in the nuts may be destroyed by
fumigating with carbon bi-sulphide. The nuts should be placed in a tight
box, and one-half pound for each five hundred cubic feet of space used,
allowing them to remain for forty-eight hours.

THE HICKORY SHUCK WORM (_Grapholitha caryana_): Sometimes pecan nuts are
attacked, as they approach maturity, by a small, white caterpillar,
which mines its way through the shucks of the nuts. This caterpillar is
the hickory shuck worm, the larva of a small moth.

But little is known of its life-history, and until more is known of its
habits, the best advice that can be given is to gather and destroy the
infested nuts by burning them.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Gossard.

[N] Hedrick. (See index of literature).

[O] Gossard. (See index of literature).

PART VI.

Uses. Literature.

CHAPTER XVI.

PECAN KERNELS.

Pecan nuts are used in a variety of ways. Not so very long since they
were used almost entirely for dessert purposes, now they are largely
used in making pastries and