STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 55 



apples that surprised them. Now you know that some people 

 live to be eighty, ninety years old. Put the same person when 

 they started in at thirty or forty under different environments 

 and with a different method of living, they wouldn't have lived 

 till they were fifty. So with our orchards, many of them. The 

 result of high cultivation is another thing that has gone hard 

 with some orchards — orchards killed that have been under a high 

 state of cultivation. And that is natural. Many claim, you 

 know, that the Jersey cow is crowded and fed high and is weak. 

 You feed an orchard high, you make it grow and not let the 

 wood mature in the fall, — of course you expect to lose.. There 

 is a happy medium. I don't mean to run down cultivation at 

 all, or any of those things, and I don't care to discuss those — 

 I think I have overrun the time now — but there are lots of these 

 questions that will be brought out, and if there are any of them 

 that I can answer I shall be glad to do so later on. 



NEED OF SPRAYING. 



Special interest attaches to the matter of spraying in Maine. 

 This was made the general topic for discussion at the field meet- 

 ings of the society. When apples were gathered to all appear- 

 ances they were generally free from scab. After they had been 

 stored for several weeks conditions seem to have changed some- 

 what, and in many cases scab developed rapidly and much fruit 

 was ruined for market. Mr. Wheeler of the Executive Com- 

 mittee called the Secretary's attention to this condition and he 

 was requested to go and examine the fruit and take samples and 

 send to Washington and Orono. The fruit sent to Washington 

 was referred to Air. M. B. Waite, the pathologist in charge in 

 the department, and in reply he wrote Mr. Wheeler as follows : 



Your letter to Pomological Investigations, with accompany- 

 ing box of diseased Baldwin apples, has been referred to me for 

 attention by Col. Brackett, Pomologist. 



I have made an examination of these diseased apples, and find 

 that they are affected with two troubles. The original trouble 

 is caused by the apple scab fungus and is the disease known as 

 apple scab. This is the small brown or nearly black scabby spot 

 that occurs so commonly over the samples. The scab fungus 

 attacks the apples while growing in the orchard. The disease 



