STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 137 



I have thought that the facts in the case were different from that, 

 and I want to know whether I am right or wrong. 



Mr. Green — This matter of spraying apple trees 1 have taken 

 much interest in. Last season I sprayed my trees when in bloom, 

 using a solution of London Purple — one pound of purple to one 

 hundred gallons of water and I had perfect apples ; not five per 

 cent, of imperfect ones, and my apples kept first rate. As to the 

 idea of spraying the tree after the bloom falls, I don't know 

 about it. This year I was unable to attend to my work when the 

 trees were in bloom, and I did not get them sprayed, and my ap- 

 ples are poor, but as they were all bad in that part of the coun- 

 try, I do not know whether it was on account of not spraying or 

 not. I have felt great interest in this matter of preserving our 

 trees; apple trees are dying all over the State, and not ten per 

 cent, of the trees alive on my place ten years ago are alive now. 

 I believe there is a disease passing over our part of the State and 

 passing westward. I believe it is something similar to the blood 

 poisoning of the animal, and I believe that where a limb is taken 

 off and the bacteria gets into the tree, disease is produced. I 

 have not time to discuss that fully, but I furnished a paper last 

 year published in the proceedings of the Central Society, and I 

 wish our experimental stations would take the matter up and see 

 what there is in it. The trees in our part of the State which 

 have been out only three or four years are as much affected as 

 the older ones. The question is asked, did the spraying affect the 

 trees badly ! It did not. Occasionally the trees seemed a little 

 scorched. 



Mr. Speer — As to using arsenical poisons it is well to be very 

 careful. A pound of arsenic to four hundred gallons of water is 

 entirely too strong ; a pound to one thousand gallons is fully strong 

 enough. I have burned the foliage with too strong a solution. 

 However, there was so much rain this season that it is hard to 

 say what the result of spraying might have been. The spraying 

 was very unsatisfactory to me this year, but I thought I saw less 

 of the codling moth where I used spray than on my checks. An- 

 other point is, you want to use a very fine spray; a weak solution 

 of arsenic put on foliage so that it comes in coarse, large drops, 

 will burn the foliage, while a fine spray of the same solution would 

 not. 



