No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 507 



trees are soon almost denuded, after which a new but sickly growth 

 of new leaves appears. The fruit from such trees is very much be- 

 low the average in size and quality. The cause of this disease has 

 not been determined, nor any remedy applied. 



JAMES W. ANDERSON, Stewartstown, York Co.— I am alarmed 

 in regard to the San Josd Scale, and if there is not vigorous effort 

 made to check its ravages we will be knocked out of business in 

 less than ten years. Our legislature ought to make an appropria- 

 tion for this very important work and have men visit all fruit grow- 

 ers and nurserymen and compel them to spray. 



D. M. WERTZ, Quincy, Franklin Co. — I have tried no new varie- 

 ties. I have marketed nothing but peaches, selling nearly 22,000 

 baskets the past season. We are troubled with yellows, but the 

 Avorst of all San Jos^ Scale, woolly aphis, shot-hole borer, root gall, 

 crown gall, borers, blight around the collar of apple trees, twig 

 blight and a number of other pests to make one's life miserable. 



THEODORE DAY, Dyberry, Wayne Co.— This is third year of 

 big apple crop and most trees have made little growth. Good 

 grafts were scarce last spring and I did very little grafting. Most 

 trees were in poor condition for grafting. A large share of the 

 big crop of apples wasted. Nearly all our farms are rough hill- 

 sides and hard to work. All our best young people go to towns or 

 elsewhere, leaving nearly all our farms very light handed, and it 

 does not pay to work them with poor hired help, or to pay high 

 wages. 



W. H. STOUT, Pinegrove, Schuylkill Co.— The season was cool 

 and wet, fungus and rot serious, but little damage to fruit by in- 

 sects. Apples were so abundant that they were unprofitable, with 

 quantities wasted, not with cost of marketing. Plums were abun- 

 dant and found market at low prices. Peaches being a failure 

 helped the sale of the plums which might otherwise have been un- 

 profitable. Competition is becoming more keen, so that the con- 

 sumer and not the producer profits by large crops. 



J. B. REIFF, Spring City, Chester Co. — We should have some 

 legislation compelling every one to spray or some authorized in- 

 spector to see that it is done. W"e, as nurserymen are compelled to 

 fumigate all our stock sent out and our careless neighbors keep on 

 breeding scales faster than we are able to kill them. While we can 

 send out our stock from our nurseries perfectly clean and in good 

 shape, but planted among stock covered with scales, they cannot 

 grow and we receive censure for sending out stock infested with 

 scales. Until we get some legislation that is much more far reach- 

 ing than at present we cannot look for an extermination of the 

 scale pest, while the salt, lime and sulphur is number one, there 

 are too many who will not go to the trouble to use it and the conse- 

 quence is that all suffer alike, the just and the unjust. 



OLIVER D. SCHOCK, Hamburg, Berks Co.— Fruit in general was 

 of excellent quality; best in many years. As a judge of the fruit 

 displays at various fairs the past fall, the above was made self-evi- 

 dent by the character and quality of the fruit exhibited. The new 

 varieties are also in evidence and some of these are very promising. 



The San Jos6 Scale has made serious gains and many of the larg- 



