200 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



This shows that the moths have some choice iu selecting a billing place. 

 Were there no patent bands, very likely the paper bands would catch all or 

 nearly all the moths caught when two bands were placed on each tree. 



Cost of using Bands. 



"We not unfrcquently hear objections made to the practice of placing bands 

 around trees to catch moths. "It is too much botlier," or "It costs too much 

 in labor and money." 



The bands iu our climate should be placed around the trees by the middle 

 of June, and changed every eight or ten days for nine times. 



We pay our students eight cents an hour for work and they board them- 

 selves. At ordinary speed it takes one student an hour and a half to change 

 a hundred bands once and kill the moths, or thirteen and a half hours for a 

 hundred trees during the season. This amounts to a dollar and eight cents per 

 hundred, or a trifle over a cent per tree. The cost of the paper and cutting 

 it up, and replacing now and then an injured band, is about one cent apiece. 

 Add these and we have the enormous ( ! ) sum of a trifle over two cents all 

 told, to properly bandage each tree for a year. As I have said before, the 

 man who is not enterprising enough to take this trouble deserves to eat wormy 

 apples all the days of his life. 



Plaster on Apple Trees. 



Mr. C. N. Merriman, of Grand Eapids, and perhaps other men has claimed 

 that plaster or gypsum will produce a favorable result on the amount of fruit 

 which a tree will set, that it helps the growth of the tree, and keeps away the 

 codling moths. 



We do not claim to have given this a thorough trial. Just as the trees were 

 in flower, two trees of Northern Spy were well dusted over with gypsum. At 

 four other times, at nearly equal entervals during the summer, the trees were 

 dusted with gypsum. 



One of these trees yielded very nearly 7^ bushels, another near by which 

 was notso treated, b\ bushels. In the first lot of apples plastered, there were 

 194 moth-eaten apples. In the second lot of apples not plastered, there were 

 159 moth-eaten apples. In another place the plastered tree yielded nearly 5 

 bushels of apples, which contained 114 wormy specimens, while the tree not 

 plastered yielded about 4| bushels and contained 5U wormy specimens. 



Old Air-slacked Lime on Apple Trees. 

 This was applied in the same manner as the plaster, with similar results. 



Pears, Plums, Cherries, Grapes. 



Our plants of the above fruits have all done Avell during the past year. I 

 will not repeat the list of varieties as that has been done each year for several 

 years past. 



We have 100 varieties of grapes, and add each year what seem to be most 

 promising from cold climate. Forty-one varieties of grapes fruited the past 

 year. 



The Green-house and Flower Grounds, Drives and Trees. 



These have been kept up in the usual manner, as well as our labor and 

 money would allow. Some improvements have been made. The increased 

 growth of the trees has improved the appearance of the grounds. 



