64 Agricultural Experiment Station^ Ithaca, N. Y. 



People say that spraying is not always sure to bring a crop. Cer- 

 tainly not! One can not feed a horse by nsing a ciirry comb. It 

 is a wonder that, in the average orchard, the spray is ever sufficient 

 to secure a crop; but the fact that it often is, is proof of the won- 

 derful constitutional vigor of an apple tree and the pertinacity with 

 which it holds on under discouragement. 



Some persons who have cultivated, fed and pruned their orchards 

 for the j)ast few years, and have sprayed in the bargain, have yet 

 failed to secure good crops. This is not surprising. One should 

 not expect to correct the evils of years of neglect by a spurt of 

 repentance ; and the evil is the worse, too, for having been wrought 

 when the orchard was young, for " as the twig is bent, the tree 's 

 inclined." Orchards which have been many years in sod and 

 neglect are occasionally thrown into such exuberant growth by 

 tillage and fertilizing that they do not bear. Such a change would, 

 no doubt, be a surprise to most western New York orchards, and it 

 would be no wonder if the trees should jump out of their boots. In 

 such case the orchard ist should aim at a moderate growth by stop- 

 ping cultivation early in the season (say the middle or last of July) 

 and by the sparing use of nitrogenous fertilizers. Yet this treat- 

 ment — liberal tillage, fertilizing, pruning and spraying — is the 

 best which can be recommended for old and unprofitable plantations, 

 and if it will not revive the old trees the only remaining treatment 

 is to plant a new orchard. 



So long as trees blossom profusely, they should bear. Perhaps 

 the bloom oftenest fails because of the attacks of the apple-scab 

 fungus, an opinion which was first expressed, so far as I know, in 

 our Bulletin 19, which was devoted to the fruit failures of 1890 in 

 western New York. When this is the case, Bordeaux mixture is a 

 specific. Frequently, the trouble is the codlin-moth worm or other 

 insects, and for these Paris green is a specific. But the flowers 

 probably often fail to set fruit because the tree is not sufliciently 

 nourished to sustain them. Unfortunately, there is no complete 

 specific for this difficulty, for the orchard may be in such condition, 

 from long neglect, that the land can not he properly tilled and the 

 trees can not be adequately fed. One of the best methods of feed- 

 ing the tree is to keep it well pruned, for the food which is diffused 

 in numbers of worthless limbs is then concentrated in a small num- 



