STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 63 



days to cover my orchard thoroughly. In seven days the calyx 

 cups, which are the most feasible point of attacking the cod- 

 ling moth worm, with us, have begun to close. I ought to get 

 that orchard sprayed in five days, and if one machine cannot 

 do it, I ought to get another. 



The gasoline outfit has one advantage which makes it supe- 

 rior to the new type of compressed air outfit, which has the 

 compressor and the engine attached on the wagon with the tank. 

 We need the gasoline engines to run our sizing machines. 

 Aside from this the compressed air outfits are excellent. They 

 certainly use somewhat less liquid than the gasoline outfits. 

 They make a mist spray, not a driving spray, and they are 

 simpler and considerably lighter than a gasoline outfit. 



Spraying Treatment. We heard an excellent discussion this 

 afternoon of the diseases that attack Maine fruit. You may 

 be interested to know what we have to fight in Virginia. On 

 the whole, we have less to contend with in Virginia than you 

 have. I never spray more than four times a season and find 

 that this controls pests reasonably well. 



To comfort any who may be alarmed as to the outcome of 

 the San Jose scale in the apple orchards of Maine, let me say, 

 we have the San Jose scale in Virginia, but it is the least of 

 our troubles. Fifteen years ago the apple growers of Virginia 

 were demoralized at the prospect of the scale coming into 

 their orchards. They supposed it would ruin the business. 

 Now it is considered the easiest pest to control of any we 

 have. About one year in three I am obliged to apply the San 

 Jose scale spray, when the trees are dormant. There is always 

 a little scale, just enough to continue the species in the orchard, 

 but not enough to make the fruit unmerchantable. I apply this 

 spray as late as I dare, for two reasons : First, because the 

 scale is more vulnerable then, having passed through the win- 

 ter, and the shell around the insect has become thin so that it 

 is easier to kill ; second, because late dormant spraying kills 

 aphis. When the winter buds are opening, so you can barely 

 see green in the end, the rosy aphis, one of our worst insect 

 pests, has already begun to hatch and we can see the little lice 

 on the cluster buds. By applying the strong dormant spray 

 then, we not only kill the scale but we also control the aphis to 

 a large extent. Of course there is danger that if it turns warm 



