22 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



one year unless they are very weak. Prune lightly, every year, 

 so as not to upset the bearing habit. 



Spraying machinery. In spraying, our problems are very 

 similar to yours. I prefer the gasoline spray outfit for ordinary 

 v^ork. The compressed air outfit is used on the steeper land. 

 This is a picture of the old type, one tank being for air and the 

 other for liquid, to be charged at a central loading station. This 

 is open to the grave objection that you are obliged to make long 

 trips back and forth to the loading point to charge the tank. The 

 new type of compressed air outfit, in which the compressor and 

 engine are mounted on the wagon with the spray tank, is much 

 superior. It marks the greatest advance in spraying machinery 

 in recent years; though I would not say that it is better than a 

 good gasoline outfit. 



There is one, and only one, real hurry up time in apple grow- 

 ing, when the job has to be done on the minute; that is the 

 spraying when the blossoms fall. We must get our poison in 

 the calyx cups within a week or even less or it will be too late. 

 This means that the spraying radius of an outfit is limited. We 

 used to spray forty or fifty acres with one power outfit ; now 

 we believe that twenty acres of full bearing trees is nearly the 

 maximum for one power outfit. It will help a great deal if we 

 can pipe water to all parts of the orchard. We can then dis- 

 tribute the concentrated lime-sulphur solution where water is 

 available and not go out of the orchard to load. This picture 

 shows water piped from a spring on the hillside above the or- 

 chard. By this method the spraying radius of a machine is 

 practically doubled and the cost reduced. 



Insects and diseases. In Virginia, as in Maine, I presume, the 

 codling moth is the greatest apple pest, not even excepting the 

 San Jose scale. It causes more loss in Virginia than all other 

 pests together, in spite of all our efiforts. I have come to the 

 conclusion, after four years' trial, that I will not use the dry 

 lead any longer, because it does not seem to have the sticking 

 properties of the paste lead. It may be all right in Maine, 

 where there is no large second brood of moth, but we have two 

 strong broods, emerging at different periods, and must have a 

 poison that will stick all summer on the leaves and fruit, and 

 the paste does this better than the powder. 



If we wish to have fruit next year we must make fruit buds 

 this year — big, fat ones. We can see them in tlie axils of the 



