I 



Management of Bearing Orchards. 



Every orchard should be sprayed at least four times each season: — 



1. With lime-sulphur, commercial or home-made, diluted 1 to 9 or 10 of water, 

 and applied just before the leaf buds open. No poison is necessary. This applica- 

 tion Id lis oyster-shell scale, blistermite, hud moth, and helps to ward off cankers and 

 apple scab. 



2. With lime-sulphur, commercial or home-made, diluted 1 to 40 of water and 

 two pounds of arsenate of lead per barrel as a poison, applied just before the blos- 

 some open. This application destroys all feeding caterpillars, such as American 

 tent caterpillars, canker worms, case bearers, and bud moths, and helps to control 

 apple scab and cankers. 



3. Immediately after the blossoms fall and 'before the calyces close, using the 

 same mixture as in No. 2. This application is chiefly for the control of the codling 

 moth and apple scab, but also helps control the lesser apple worm and curculio. 



4. The fourth application about two weeks after No. 3, using the same mix- 

 ture. This application is chiefly for the control of the apple scab, and also for any 

 leaf-eating insects that may have escaped the other sprays. 



Fuller information on spraying can be obtained from Mr. E. P. Bradt, 

 B.S.A., District Eepresentative of the Ontario Department of Agriculture at Morris- 

 burg. 



Diseases. — The apple tree canker is found in every orchard and a few cases of 

 nectaria canker and collar rot have also been found. These cankered areas should 

 be cut out back to good healthy bark and tissue, the wound disinfected with corrosive 

 sublimate — 1 to 1,000 — or carbolic acid, and then covered with a coat of pure paint. 

 If the canker has girdled a whole limb or is on a small limb it may be cut off. All 

 cankered wood should be destroyed by burning. 



Pruning. — This is probably the first thing that should be improved in orchard 

 practice in these three counties. Practically all the pruning has amounted to is the 

 cutting out of dead limbs and those that interfere with cultivation. In those 

 orchards that are in sod the lower limbs are destroyed by stock. As a consequence 

 of this method of pruning a great majority of the trees have become very high, with 

 long scaffold branches, and with only a small fruit-bearing area over the top. 



A little judgment is all that is necessary in pnming a bearing orchard. The 

 tree should be kept fairly thin in the top to allow a free circulation of sun and air 

 through it, and to produce full maturity of the fruit on all parts of the tree. Narrow 

 and weak crotches should not be left wherever it can be avoided, as they often break 

 down under their load of fruit, causing a bad gap in that part of the tree which will 

 take many years to fill up again with new wood. All crossing, diseased and deformed 

 limbs should be taken out and the pruner should always endeavor to keep the top of 

 the tree well balanced and symmetrical in form. 



Culture. — It might be said that most all the bearing orchards are in sod, as only 

 seven per cent, of them are cultivated, and of those only two or three in the whole 

 district covered by the survey are clean cultivated and a cover crop sown. 



Nevertheless, one successful orchardist of this district prefers to have his 

 orchard in sod after it is ten years of age, although he frankly admits that a culti- 

 vated orchard will yield larger crops than an uncultivated one, and strongly advo- 

 cates the cultivation of young orchards. His reasons are that an orchard that is well 

 manured, sprayed and pruned will give good yields while in sod, and that about once 

 in every twenty years we get a severe winter which will injure the trees if the orchard 

 is cultivated. 



