STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 45 



work has been rendered at a meeting of this society for some 

 time. Therefore, I am very glad of the opportunity to tell you 

 something about what we think we have learned in recent 

 years regarding our own spraying problems here in Maine, 

 based on our own experience, irrespective of the results ob- 

 tained in other states, and to outline to you some of the un- 

 solved and partly solved problems which we are fac'ng. 



I shall try to give you a notion of the object, character and 

 extent of these experiments and state as briefly as possible what 

 seem to us as evident conclusions as well as those which are of 

 a tentative nature. It is not my intention to burden you with 

 the less important details or tabulated .results — these are to be 

 found in published or forthcoming bulletins of the Station — 

 but rather to give you a summary of the results of the past 

 three or four years, using only such figures as are necessary to 

 illustrate the facts as they appear to us. 



The primary object of these experiments centers around the 

 efficient and economical control of apple scab with a minimum 

 amount of injury to fruit and foliage. This involves the nature 

 of the spray used, as well as the time, number and manner of 

 the applications. 



Great progress has been made in the control of apple scab 

 by spraying, but under local climatic conditions there is still 

 much to be learned. Potato growers in southern Maine who 

 thought they sprayed thoroughly and yet sufifered severely 

 from blight and rot this past season may not agree with me, 

 but I believe I am right when I say that efficient control of late 

 blight of potatoes by spraying is much more of a certainty 

 when the proper methods are used than is the case with apple 

 scab. 



Certain sprays, including Bordeaux mixture, if applied at 

 exactly the right time, give fully as much protection from apple 

 scab as the last named fungicide does from potato blight. This 

 avails but little if, at the same time, the spray removes half or 

 two-thirds of the foliage from the tree. Also in the case of 

 Bordeaux mixture when used on susceptible varieties, like the 

 Ben Davis, the fruit, though practically free from scab and 

 other parasitic diseases may be 90 per cent unsalable on ac- 

 count of russeting. In this connection the speaker firmly be- 

 lieves, however, that for those varieties of apples which it does 

 not injure or injures but slightly, Bordeaux mixture is the most 



