Kew York Agricultural Experiment Station. 353 



jield on the average from one-third bushel to one and a half 

 bushels per tree. 



Spraying in bloom, -while it thinno:! the fruit, did not always 

 decrease the amount of marketable fruit. 



The evidence indicates that spraying in bloom has the effect 

 of thinning the fruit if the treatment is given soon after the 

 blossoms open. Should the trees have but little bloom it would 

 seem, therefore, that such spraying might cause a decided loss 

 in yield of marketable fruit. Further experiments however, are 

 needed before this point may be considered as thoroughly estab- 

 lished. 



IXTRODFCTION. 

 S. A. Beach. 



The practice of spraying fruit-bearing plants in bloom, espe- 

 cially apple trees, started a few years ago. Among some of the 

 fruit-growers in this State it soon spread to such an extent that 

 the bee-keepers became alarmed at the prospect of serious injury 

 to their interests by the wholesale poisoning of the bees which 

 might visit the sprayed blossoms. Accordingly they succeeded 

 in 1^98 in securing the enactment of a law making it a misde- 

 meanor to apply any poisonous substance in any way to fruit 

 trees in bloom.^ 



Some of the fruit-growers who had come to believe that better 

 results could be gained by spraying in bloom than by spraying at 

 any other time were very much opposed to the law and tried to 



^CHAPTER 325, LAWS OF 1898. 



An act to prsvent the application of poison to fruit trees while in 

 Iblossom, 



The people of ifie State of Neic York, represented in Senate and Assembly, 

 do enact as follows: 



Section 1. Any person who shall spray with, or apply in any way, 

 poison or any poisonous substance to fruit trees while the same are In 

 blossom, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than 

 ten dollars nor more than fifty dollars. 



Section 2. This act shall take effect July first, eighteen hundred and 

 (ninety-eight. 



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