40 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



of spray which it eventually developed was entirely unneces- 

 sary. It ought to be explained, however, that the conditions 

 existed which would have permitted rainfall within 24 hours 

 after the spraying was done, but it so happened that the clouds 

 bore no rain. 



Apple Scab Control. 



Hindrances. It may seem like a relatively simple matter to 

 follow these things through and come out successfully, but i 

 can assure you it is not. Storms are often erratic, coming with 

 much more speed than ordinarily. Fruit buds may develop 

 slowly and following an unexpected warm day may come out 

 more rapidly. The period involved in the first two summer 

 sprays is a most critical one, and those of us with experi- 

 mental work on our hands spend some very unpleasant hours 

 trying to guess whether the buds will have developed far 

 enough to be sprayed satisfactorily before a given storm period 

 arrives, or whether the scab fungus has produced spores in a 

 quantity sufficient to insure infection. I can assure you that 

 we search the daily paper for the weather map before we look 

 for baseball news or the latest developments in the Mexican 

 situation. 



There is still another difficulty involved. The expense of 

 spraying is such that it is always necessary to bear in mind that 

 protection of foliage from fungi must be coupled in some way 

 or other with an application of an insecticide to kill insects. 1 

 have this in mind in connection with the first application for 

 apple scab, holding ofif the application until the bud clusters 

 are expanded sufficiently to drive the spray down on the pedi- 

 cles and at the same time getting the poison on early enough 

 to kill the bud moth in its early stages. Then again, there is the 

 necessity of combining the first codling moth spray with the 

 application of spray to the young fruit to prevent scab. A few 

 warm days may cause a rapid development of the young fruit 

 and the calyxes may close before it was anticipated. In fol- 

 lowing these conditions in a number of places in western New 

 York during 191 1 and 1912 it was found, except on early 

 blooming varieties for which no record was kept, that there 

 were only four days time when either of the applications 



