108 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



SPRAYING EXPERIMENTS. 



No line of work associated with the successful culture of fruits at the present time, 

 is charged with greater interest to the horticulturist than is the subject under considera- 

 tion. It is also true that no other advance in horticultural practice has been so readily 

 taken up by the more progressive' and practical, nor more discussed by the theoretical 

 and procrastinating class. Third and fourth classes may be made of those who have 

 tried without success the remedies recommended, and those who disbelieve and have not 

 tried. But honest doubt should always be respected. 



Again, there are few, if any, operations now included in the annual programme of 

 the fruit grower whose success is so dependent on conditions practically outside the 

 control of the operator than is spraying. Meteorological conditions, as rain and wind, 

 heat and cold, bear a marked influence on the results, and often discourage a beginner 

 from carrying into practice good resolutions formed at the opening of the season. An 

 unfavourable season will so frequently mar the effect of conscientious effort as to place 

 in doubt the beneficial results, thus shaking the confidence of the beginner. 



Before going into the subject proper, namely, the result of the season's work, it 

 might prove interesting to preface it with a brief history of the introduction of the 

 practice of spraying. 



In 1882 Professor Millardet, an eminent botanist, of Bordeaux, Prance, had his 

 attention called to the fact that grape vines sprinkled with a mixture of bluestone and 

 lime to deter the inroads of boys and vagrants, were much less attacked by mildew than 

 other vines not so treated. Acting on the suggestion conveyed by this object lesson, he 

 carried on experiments during 1883 and 1884, and gave to the public the result of his 

 work on May 1st, 1885. As Mr. Fairchild, of the Department of Agriculture, Washing- 

 ton, says in an excellent article recently published on Bordeaux Mixture as a fungicide, 

 "It appears that to Millardet is due the credit of first correctly interpreting the immu- 

 nity, shown by the treated vines in Medoc, and of conceiving a practical method by 

 which copper sulphate could be used as a remedy for the disease in question." 



The news of this discovery was soon chronicled in America, the bulletins of recom- 

 mendations were issued by the Department of Agriculture at Washington and the 

 California Experiment Station early in 1886. The following two years gave to the 

 public the results of experiments conducted in the United States, and established a 

 formula for Bordeaux mixture which has been more or less generally accepted and has 

 become in a measure, a standard. This formula was recommended by Mr. Galloway, 

 Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology, at Washington, D.C., and consisted of 

 6 pounds of copper sulphate and 4 pounds of lime in 22 gallons of water. The first 

 formula, however, was much stronger than this and contained 18 pounds of copper 

 sulphate and about 30 pounds of lime to which was added 30 gallons of water. Such a 

 mixture resembled a thick paste and was applied by means of wisps of straw or brooms. 

 Many other mixtures were soon introduced and tried by the active American scientists 

 principally on account of the difficulty of applying the concentrated form of Bordeaux 

 mixture. In the spring of 1890, the first year of the appointment of the writer as 

 Horticulturist to the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, experiments were planned 

 and carried out in orchards at Abbotsford, Quebec. The experiments were designed to 

 show the benefit of spraying with ammoniacal copper carbonate in varying proportions, 

 copper sulphate of varying strength, and the value of hyposulphite of soda as a fungicide. 

 The variety of apple treated was Fameuse and the results gained demonstrated the 

 profit of spraying with ammoniacal copper carbonate of the strength since recommended 

 by the Horticultural Division of the Experimental Farm. Experiments have been con- 

 tinued each year up to the present, but marked with more or less success according to 

 the character of the season. In the initial stages of this work the important questions 

 of economy and ease of application, in addition to the effectiveness had to be studied by 



