REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 53 



The question of spraying to destroy insects and fungi in 

 the orchard is new, and many farmer-orchardists who comply 

 with the requirements of the law do so with little faith of 

 accomplishing the desired results. I find that when to spray, 

 how to spray, what to spray for, and what to spray with, are 

 enigmas to many of the farmer-orchardists. They desire to 

 preserve their orchards from insects and fungi, but are de- 

 terred from spraying for want of faith in the results of some 

 of their neighbors, who liad sprayed and failed to exterminate 

 or lessen the worm in the apple, or destroy the San Jose scale 

 their, trees are infested with . I have carefully investigated 

 several of these failures in spraying, and in each case found 

 the "neighbor who sprayed and failed" lacked the knowl- 

 edge of when, what for, how, and what to spray with. 



The orchardist that sprays with paris green or london 

 pui'ple to destro}^ green aphis or scale fails because he makes 

 a misapplication of the remedy. I find many fail in spraying, 

 where the proper remedy is used, from the fact that they 

 spray carelessly and are not thorough in their work. Spray- 

 ing with any of the remedies is labor lost iniless carefully 

 and thoroughl}- done. Every part of the tree sprayed must 

 be treated with the spray to make it effective. To exterminate 

 a fire in a building we extinguish. every spark, else it would 

 soon begin to burn again. So with the scale on our trees, 

 we must treat every limb and spur on the tree with the spray- 

 ing compound, else an untreated spur infested would in a 

 sliort time infest the whole tree again. To lessen the loss 

 from the apple worm, every apple on the tree must be sprayed 

 to reduce the loss to a minimum. 



Last year generally all over this state wormy apples were 

 the rule. An apple free of worms was the exception. This 

 is all wrong, and the reason the apple crop in this state was 

 so wormy and such a loss to the growers was because so many 

 of the large growers have not studied the habits of the moth 

 that produces the apple worm, and have not sprayed intelli- 

 gently. In many cases in this district but one or two spray- 

 ings were given for the apple worm. Probably the first 

 spraying was too late to be effective with the first brood. 



Saunders in his work, " Insects Injurious to Fruit," speak- 

 ing of the codling moth, says : " The early brood of moths 

 appear on the wing about the time of the opening of the 

 apple blossoms, when the female deposits her tiny yellow eggs 

 singly in the. calyx or eye, just as the young apple is forming. 



