76 Agricultural Experiment Station^ Ithaca, N. Y. 



soil is deep, gravelly loam, and the orchard bore fairly well 

 up to eight years ago. Six years ago I became convinced that, like 

 all orchards of early setting, the trees were altogether too thick ; 

 they interlocked, and the red apples, such as Baldwins, were, as you 

 might say, growing white from lack of sun and air ; the ground 

 was covered with moss, and, as well as the trees, had become 

 unproductive. I had one-half of the orchard cut down diagonally, 

 leaving the remaining trees standing in diamond order, twenty-four 

 trees to the acre. As a result of this thinning out, the ground lost 

 its sourness and became covered with grass — in fact the change was 

 as great as in a cup of black coffee after receiving cream and sugar. 

 I wish to say, for the benefit of my brother fruit growers, that the 

 butts of those trees were sold for fifty- five dollais per thousand to 

 Henry Disston & Sons, saw manufacturers of Philadelphia, yielding 

 me about six hundred dollars. But all this thinning out, with good 

 culture and heavy manuring added, did not rid this orchard of the 

 apple-scab fungus. The foliage was rusty and the apples scabby 

 every yenr, though there was a fairly good yield of inferior fruit. 

 In January, 1893, according to my custom, I visited the Western 

 New York Horticultural Society, and made myself thoroughly 

 acquainted with the scab fungus through information received, and 

 "carefully noting the valuable suggestions in our excellent Experi- 

 ment Station bulletins. In the following spring, I selected two 

 Baldwin trees which bloomed fairly well, and gave them three 

 thorough sprayings with the Bordeaux mixture. These two trees 

 gave me a heavy crop of first class apples ; while the fruit in the 

 balance of the orchard was so scabby that the bulk of it was sent to 

 the dry house, and those I packed were by no means of the first 

 quality. This experiment thoroughly converted me to the import- 

 ance of spraying orchards for profit ; and in the spring of 1894 I set 

 to work with all the force and confidence which I every year ex- 

 pend in raising fifty to seventy-acres of beans. I will now give the 

 results of seven tests of spraying. 



J^it'st Test. — On April 23, 1894, I commenced with the Bordeaux 

 mixture on my apple orchard (twenty pounds sulphate of copper 

 and four pails of milk of lime to one hundred and fifty gallons of 

 water) just as the buds began to swell. Greening, Baldwin, King, 

 Twenty Ounce, Talman Sweet, Strawberry — in fact all my varieties 



