No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF ACRTCULTURE. 57& 



heai'iuj^- him. The same applies to Profcssoi- Surface and others. 1 

 was very much pleased to hear his talk on this subject and, evi- 

 dently, he is the right man in the right place. After all that has 

 been said I am afraid you have heard too much for one day on the 

 subject of sulphur, lime and salt wash and San Jos6 Scale so that 

 you must be getting tired, and I shall not take up much of your 

 time in the discussion of this important question. 



The SECRETARY: More questions will follow. 



PROFESSOR MARLATT: I will regret it. I agree with all 

 the speakers that oil, perhaps, has had its day; that the thing to 

 use is lime, sulphur and salt wash because it is safe and there is no 

 risk to run in the use of it upon your trees. Its effects are as 

 good as oil and it has more lasting effects than oil. To answer 

 this question about oil: We have sprayed peach trees with kero- 

 sene and crude petroleum for three or four years in succession 

 without any injury. The same with apples and plum trees. After 

 all it is the man at the end of the nozzle that does the work. Back 

 in 1894, is the first I sprayed with oil and I killed those trees. I 

 said to the sprayer, in order to be successful, that he should spray 

 them until they are wet and those trees were killed. Afterwards 

 we sprayed the trees, as Professor Surface has described, and I 

 have never killed a tree with oil since. While I would spray my 

 own orchards with oil I should not recommend any one else to 

 spray with oil unless they have experimented with its use. Just 

 now I would not spray them with oil but the lime, sulphur and salt 

 because it is cheaper and the effects are better; that is, knowing 

 what I do about its use I would not spray them with oil now be- 

 cause I would not entrust my man to do it. You have to employ 

 men to do it and I do not believe you can get a man, whom you 

 could entrust to put oil on trees. 



I might say, with reference to this lime, sulphur and salt, that 

 the first benefit seems to be due from its being an insecticide as to 

 killing the scales, but as to its action through the summer, if you 

 put on this wash and it is very strong and hot when put on you 

 will kill most of the scale at once, but in a majority of the cases 

 you will not kill all the scale but a larger per cent, of them. The 

 balance of the scale will go through the winter and the females 

 will hatch and produce millions of young and in the use of this wash 

 you will find remnants of the lime, sulphur and salt for sometime 

 after and here is where the benefits come in. There is enough lime 

 and sulphur there to kill them, or at least enough remaining there 

 until they die, wiiieh is probably- due to the action of the sulphur 

 and lime, The sulphur, as we know, has a very strong insecticide 

 action, especially for very small insects, killing the young that 

 have escaped the direct caustic effect of the wash. 



