Slimmer Meeting. 



i'l 



too little information as yet which would enable us to say positively as 

 to whether most of the infection is carried from one fruit to another. 

 However, that may be. and it is a point which we are now trying to 

 solve, the rotted apple, when it falls from the tree has many thousands 

 of these little fruiting bodies on it, each with countless thousands of 

 spores. During the past six months we have carefully examined 

 man}- of the shriveled mummies lying under apple trees, from this 

 State and several others, and invariably we have found thousands 

 of spores in these fruits ; and what is more, these spores sprouted very 

 readily in drops of water. During the winter and spring with every 



rain which soaks these old fruits, 

 more and more spores escape. We 

 do not as yet know where they all go. 

 Some certainly lodge in the branches 

 and oud scales. We found several 

 cases where spores had adhered to 

 bud scales, but our investigations 

 are not more than begun concernng 

 this point. It can be said with safety, 

 however, that the last year's spores are 

 somewhere in the orchard where they 

 get at the fruit in due time. We are 

 JF't^^ now directing our attention towards 



solving the all important question : Where are these spores during 

 the time just before the rotting season? Next winter we may be able 

 to tell you something more about this matter. In the meantime, 

 we are safe in giving you this advice : Remove all the dead apples 

 from your trees and from the ground under 3'0'ur trees before the buds 

 open. 



Knowing now that this disease is propagated by spores, we may 

 ask, ought it not to be easy to fight it by spraying ? to which question 

 Ave may say with little fear : "Yes, we think so." The spores get into 

 the fruit from the outside ; we can destroy the spores which cause 

 other diseases in this way, why not the "bitter rot?" We are now 

 trying, on a large scale, in a number of orchards extending from \"ir- 

 ginia to Oklahoma, to find out when it will prove most profitable to 

 spray. As the disease attacks the fruit during its ripening period, I 

 have much hope that late spraying will prove successful. I would 

 according!}- recommend spraying trees once or twice in June, July 

 and also in August. It may be objected that spraying so late will 

 disfigure the fruit, or leave too much of the Bordeaux mixture on the 

 fruit. In the first place, I do not think enough would remain to make 



