EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 293 



GENERAL CARE OF AN ORCHARD TO PROTECT AGAINST INSECT 



ATTACKS. 



• 



Much that has not been given on the preceding pages can be done 

 in protecting an apple orchard against insect depredations of all kinds. It 

 all comes under good care and management of an orchard. 



L An apple orchard that has had all dead or diseased limbs and trees 

 cut out and burned each season, will seldom be troubled with any kind of 

 borers. Brush piles and dead wood of all kinds in an orchard, breed borers 

 very fast and, as soon as there is no dead wood, they will attack that which 

 is living. 



2. Cultivating an orchard will greatly lessen the number of leaf-eating 

 caterpillars and bud moths that annually appear. Many of them pupate 

 in the dead grass and stubble, and when these are not present other insects 

 and birds are quite sure to find them and eat them. 



3. If the stock could have all the windfalls and wormy apples each sea- 

 son there would be fewer worm-eaten apples than we now have; and, were 

 orchardists united in doing this, there would be no need of spraying for 

 the codlin moth. 



In general we may say, keep the orchard clean and free from dead or 

 diseased wood and rubbish of all kinds. Protect against climbing cut 

 worms by wool bands in early spring. Keep watch when the leaves begin 

 to open, and, if the young canker worms are present, spray the trees with 

 one of the arsenites. In a week or ten days after the blossoms fall, spray 

 the orchard for the codlin moth, and if the wormy apples that may have 

 escaped the spraying are fed to the stock, so much the better. A tree, to 

 be kept in a thrifty condition, should not suffer constant sap drainage from 

 bark and leaf lice and should be protected against them when they are 

 numerous. Occasionally other insect outbreaks may appear in a well-kept 

 orchard, but usually, if we take care of these five or six, the other one hun- 

 dred and ninety will never cause any anxiety. 



DISEASES OF THE PEACH. 

 PEACH YELLOWS. 



Although nothing is known as to the cause of this most-to-be-dreaded 

 disease of the peach, it has been carefully studied for years and the effect 

 of the disease and the treatment are understood by most fruitgrowers. 

 As an indication of the virulence of the disease, it may be stated that, so 

 far as it is known, no tree in the state of Michigan, that has been attacked 

 by yellows, ever recovered from it. The disease has appeared under 

 almost all conditions, and none of them can be cited as the cause. While 

 it is probable that a tree, grown under conditions that are in every way favor- 

 able, will be less subject to attack than one that is feeble and exhausted, 

 either from lack of proper food or from overbearing, the tree that is appar- 

 ently the healthiest may not escape. Excellent illustrations of this dis- 

 ease are shown in Bulletin 103 and in the Report of the State Horti- 

 cultural Society for 1888. 



