pearing on account of the blight, and
presumably weevils are on the decrease. Within the small area of the
orchard, however, the increase has been abnormal, due, as has been
indicated, to the peculiarly favorable and man-made conditions. If, from
the time the trees of the orchard began to bear, the investigations
being carried on had called for close gathering of the nuts at maturity
and the destruction of all the worms that issued from them, there is
little doubt that infestation would have been kept within reasonable
bounds. At present, after two years of attention to the collection of
ripening nuts, there is an apparent decrease in the number of weevils.
Strong emphasis should be placed upon the importance of gathering
chestnuts as soon as they are ripe and prevention of the worms from
reaching the soil. This is especially true of districts where woods
surrounding chestnut orchards do not contain bearing native chestnut
trees.

_The Nut Weevils_

Now that the subject of nut weevils has been introduced, let us consider
in more detail these grotesque, long-snouted insects whose larvae, or
grubs, play havoc with so many of our nuts. Most of us have had the
experience of gathering in autumn rich stores of our delicious native
chestnuts. But how often our anticipations of boiled and roasted feasts
have been blighted. We have found that the chestnuts were like the manna
which fed the children of Israel in the wilderness, "When we left of
them until the morning they bred worms and became foul." There are
numerous cases in this country where chestnuts in shipment have been
seized and condemned under the provisions of the Food and Drugs Act.
Usually the phraseology of the libel has been "because the shipment
consisted in part of filthy animal substances, to wit, worms, worm
excreta, worm-eaten chestnuts and decayed chestnuts." Altogether the
loss to chestnuts from weevil injury is beyond computation.

The beetles which are the parents of the familiar worms in chestnuts are
not commonly seen, or, if observed, they are not associated with the
disgusting inhabitants of the nut kernels. These beetles represent in
their structure a very interesting adaptation to a special end. The
mouth is located at the tip of an enormously long snout, or proboscis,
and the drill-like instrument is used for puncturing the thick covering
of various kinds of nuts so as to admit the egg into the kernel upon
which the young will feed. In some ca