STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 65 



Batchtowx, III. 

 Mr. a. C. Hammond, Sec. Horticultural Society, Warsaw, III. 



Dear Sir: — lu compliance with your request for an account ol: my ex- 

 perience in spraying apple trees to protect the fruit against the ravages of 

 orchard pests, I submit the following: 



After having read the published account of your experiment in the 

 spring of 1887. and the good results claimed by you, I last spring bought a 

 P. G. Lewis Force Pump and a quantity of London Purple. 1 put a forty- 

 five gallon barrel on a wagon — tilled the barrel nearly full of water, then 

 thoroughly stirred 5 oz. of the poison into a bucket of water and poured 

 that into the barrel, stirring it well in the barrel, hooked the pump in the 

 staple in the bottom of the bucket, filled the bucket with the poisoned water 

 in barrel and commenced spraying by driving the wagon close along one 

 side of the row of trees and back tlie other side; but 1 soon found thtit too 

 slow a process. So I ordered a Field's Improved Force Pump, manufac- 

 tured by The Field Force Pump Co., of Lockport, N. Y.— cost fourteen 

 dollars. The suction pipe of this pump passes down through a hole in the 

 head of the barrel, the pipe reaching iieaWy to the bottom of the barrel, the 

 pump being held in position on the head of the barrel by screwing it fast to 

 Jiead of the barrel. 



The poison for use by this pump is prepared the same as for the Lewis 

 Pump, but, as both heads are in the barrel, it has to be poured in through a 

 funnel. The hole in which the funnel is used serves to introduce a stick, 

 reaching to the bottom of the barrel, with which to stir the contents, so as 

 to keep the poison well mixed in the barrel. 



I found the Field Force Pump a great deal more expeditious than the 

 Lewis Pump. With the Field Pump we drove midway between two rows 

 of trees, and sprayed the proximate sides of the two rows at one trip 

 through. With it we could easily reach the tops of the tallest trees on both 

 sides of the wagon. 



We sprayed about 2/X)0 of our trees, and are well pleased with the 

 result, — the fruit on the sprayed trees being very much smoother than that 

 on the unsprayed, and almost entirely free from worms. 



The best case for comparison I got from two separate blocks of AVillow 

 Twig trees that stand about two liundred yards apart,— both blocks the 

 sime age, being ten years old last spring. From the sprayed block of trees, 

 eighty-five in number, we gathered ninety-three barrels of the Irir^iest and 

 smoothest Willow Twigs that I ever saw, and I do not believe that there 

 were eight barrels of waste apples, or culls, left on the ground from the 

 whole block of eighty-five trees ; while from the other, or unsprayed, block 

 of seventy-five trees, we got only thirteen barrels, leaving the ground liter- 

 ally paved with wormy and specked apples. 



I am so thoroughly convinced of the immense beneiits resulting from 

 spraying that I shall use it more largely next spring. 



In justice to "The Lewis Puoip" I would say that it is all that is 

 required for an orchard of 300 or 4(X) trees, and for use against the potato 

 bug, and for garden purposes ; but for large orchards I would prefer " The 

 Field's Force Pump " with a double hose. One man can hold and direct 

 both hose, while another works the pump, thus doing twice as much work 

 in the same length of time. * 



As to the time for spraying, 1 would begin as soon as the trees are in 

 full bloom and continue the work as long as the apple stands erect on the 

 stem. I think it would be dangerous to use the spray after the apple gets 

 heavy enough to hang downward from the stem, as then the poison would 

 lodge in the cavity around the stem and remain there, in spite of the wash- 

 ing of subsequent rainfalls. 



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