Kew York Agricultural Experiment Station. 359 



fruit-gTOwers in Western New York sprayed tbeir apple orchards 

 last season when the trees were in bloom, there being a strong 

 conviction that this treatment greatly benefits the crop. 



EXPERIMENTS IN THE FIELD IN 1900. 



At the request of the Niagara County Farmers' Club, the Cor- 

 nell Experiment Station conducted cooperative experiments with 

 several fruit-growers in Western New Y^ork in 1900, to discover 

 what benefit, if any, results from spraying fruit-trees when they 

 are in full bloom. The experiments in the orchards of Harry 

 Jackson, Medina, W. R. Mudge, Hartland, and S. S. Hopkins, 

 North Ridge, were under the direct supervision of the Station, 

 and all the details of spraying and record-taking were performed 

 by an officer. The experiments in the orchards of Frank Chap- 

 lin, G-asport, Henry Bugbee, Gasport, and F. B, Freeman, Middle- 

 port, were directed by the Station, but the spraying and record- 

 taking were done by the owners of the orchards. These men did 

 careful work, and we have no hesitation in considering the 

 results of their work as of equal value with our own. Their 

 orchards were inspected. The work in all the experiments was 

 placed in charge of S. W. Fletcher, connected with the Experi- 

 ment Station, who gave the subject most careful attention. The 

 following notes are largely his. 



Unless otherwise stated, the trees in these experiments were 

 divided into four lots: (1) Sprayed before the blossoms opened; 

 (2) sprayed when the trees were in full bloom; (3) sprayed after 

 the fruit had set; (4) not sprayed during the season. It was 

 planned in the beginning to spray the third lot of trees immedi- 

 ately after the blossoms had fallen, but this spraying was 

 unavoidably delayed till a week later. None of the trees used in 

 these experiments received any spraying except what is recorded 

 in this report. The spray used in all cases was Bordeaux mixture 

 (mostly 4 lbs. blue ^'itriol and 4 lbs. lime per 50 gallons) to which 

 was added Paris green ait the rate of one-half pound to 50 gal- 

 lons of Bordeaux. 



