30 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



' SEMIANNUAL REPORT, APRIL, 1902. 



DiLLEY, Oresjon, April 14, 1902. 

 To the President of the State Board of Horticulture — 



The outlook for the fruit grower for the coming season is 

 at present very bright. We are having one of those backward 

 springs that are the joy of the fruit grower's heart. The cold 

 rains, snows, and frosts of the past week or ten days have no 

 terrors for us while the fruit is not yet in bloom. The season 

 is fully two weeks later than the average, and blooming will 

 now certainly be so late that there can be little danger of cold 

 rains or frost. Fruit trees generally are heavy laden with 

 strong, well developed fruit buds, and give every promise of a 

 good yield, and never before has there been so much thorough 

 and effective spraying done as has been accomplished this 

 spring. In the past so much spraying has been so poorly 

 done that it had just as well have been left undone ; but to do 

 good work is something that has to be learned by experience, 

 and the majority of fruit growers are learning from their own 

 and others' failures. 



The San Jose scale in my district is still mainly confined to 

 Multnomah County, in the vicinity of Portland, with a little 

 at Milwaukee, Oregon City, and ITillsboro. While it is mani- 

 festly impossible to completely stamp out this pest by arti- 

 ficial means, it is possible and practicable to hold it in check 

 so that little or no damage will result therefrom. The " lime, 

 sulphur and salt " spray, so long recommended by the board, 

 is unquestionably the most efficient and the safest compound 

 to use, and should always be applied during the winter or 

 early spring, when the trees are dormant. It is merely a 

 waste of time to attempt spraying for scale in the summer 

 time, as the foliage prevents the spray from reaching the 

 limbs and twigs where the scale is. This lime, sulphur and 

 salt spray is now being generally adopted throughout the 

 Eastern States, where it was so long claimed that it was not 

 efficient. The fruit growers of Oregon owe a great debt to 

 our lamented brother commissioner, Emile Schanno, for his 

 earnest labor in experimenting with and perfecting this spray, 

 for he, more than any other man, was responsible for the 

 compounding of it and the demonstration of its efficiency. 



The Oregon Experiment Station has just issued a bulletin, 

 from the pen of Prof. A. B. Cordley, on the codling moth, 

 that gives all the latest information about this pest, which he 



