44 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



words, to adopt the practice of spraying against the wind. 

 Unless some of you have heard Professor Whetzel talk on this 

 subject already, I am sure you wiill at once say that this is 

 eritirely out of the question. I wish to assure you that it is 

 not out of the question at all and that while many of our 

 growers insisted at first that it could not be done, still we find 

 many of them are practising it regularly now. We also found 

 that there were men who followed the practice for a long time 

 before we agitated it at the New York State Fruit Growers' 

 meetings in 1911. The idea in spraying against the w'ind is to 

 hold the nozzle at such a point as to cover one side directly and 

 allow the wind to carry the mist back and cover the opposite 

 side lof the twig or branch. The team is headed into the wind. 

 The spray poles are thus held out laterally and one is able to 

 comb the tree with spray and still wet neither the operator nor 

 horses. The only condition necessary is that the man on the 

 ground be provided with a hose of sufficient length so that he 

 can work on the next tree back from the one the man on the 

 tower is spraying. 



LIMB SPRAYING VERSUS TREE SPRAYING. 



You will notice that I said comb the tree. I have in mind 

 here that each particul'ar branch must receive special atten- 

 tion. It is not enough to spray a tree at a time. Each branch 

 must be treated as a unit and the nozzle passed up and down 

 each individual branch. This, of course, requires time and a 

 considerable quantity of material. I have considered that if it 

 is worth while to make a spraying at all it is worth while to 

 do a thorough job. It is for this reason that I stated a moment 

 ago that from sjx to ten gallons of spray would be required 

 for a 40-years-old tree, and that to cover 150 trees was a big 

 day's job for one outfit working at maximum capacity. 



It is scarcely necessary to more than mention two con- 

 venience's that should be a part of every outfit. I refer to the 

 tower and the poles. The two most important summer appli- 

 cations of spray cannot be applied at all effectively to trees of 

 any size unless one of the operators is sufficiently elevated so 

 that he can drive the spray down into the blossom clusters and 

 later into the calyx cup. I have used the word pole advisably. 



