THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 71 



culture, and chooses a proper variety, with the care and attention as outlined 

 they are very profitable and successful. The point which I wish to emphasize 

 is to choose late varieties. People are seeking and wanting plums late in 

 the season; when they return home to the city, and the season comes to a 

 close, and just as long as the fruit season extends, there is more or less call 

 for the late fruit. For instance, this year, while local conditions might 

 change the price and demand for frviit like the Japanese variety, I have 

 shipped the past season fruit to Detroit and other places, and the very 

 iinest fruit we could grow sold at 30 cents a basket, while five weeks later 

 fruit not as large sold for 50 cents. That showed the difference in the profit 

 in choosing varieties and in the time. 



Another point I wish to emphasize, is the severe pruning and heading 

 in of the trees. If the trees are left alone, unpruned, to grow from two 

 to three feet, they get very long bushy ends without fruit spurs; and by 

 heading severely, or by trimming back the old wood, it forms an innumer- 

 able number of fruit spurs. For instance, Bradshaw and Field are very 

 thrifty growers, and if pruned back sufficiently will form a sufficient number 

 of fruit buds, if pruned annually; while if not pruned, they are not an annual 

 bearer. So the pruning is one of the most important points to succeed 

 in getting regular crops. 



Geo. E. Rowe: I used the Niagara gas spra3^er this last summer and I 

 liked it very much. I have used several other sprayers. They are good, 

 but I think, this is better; at least, the others stood under the shed, and 

 the gas sprayer was the only one I used last year. I had no trouble with 

 It whatever, simply the getting of the machine back and forth from the 

 orchard to the place where we filled it. I do not know how many are pre- 

 pairing the lime and sulphur mixture for their orchards; I have not seen 

 but very few plants, but last spring I had so much spraying to do that I 

 felt it was necessary to have something larger and so I put up a platform 

 ■eight feet high, put six barrels on it, connected them with the steam pipe, 

 borrowed an old thrashing machine engine from the neighbors that had 

 not been used for several years, put it alongside of the platform, and cooked 

 that lime and sulphur with steam, and we had all the material that we could 

 use cooked up in that room. I think the most we ever used in any one day 

 with the machine was about 900 gallons. I presume if we had put in the 

 hours some people do spraying we could have used more than that, but 900 

 gallons was the most I could use in any one day with one machine. 



Q. What was the expense of operating? 



Mr. Rowe: Just about $2.00 for every 800 gallons. I used a little more 

 than that ; I used a tank — $2.00 worth of the gas power to about 600 gallons 

 when I started out; but after I sprayed two or three days and learned how 

 to use it, I did not use as much. I do not think at the last I used over 

 one tank of gas, which cost $2.00, to 1,000 gallons of liquid. That was 

 the lime and sulphur. 



Q. What was the average pressure? 



Mr. Rowe: One hundred and forty to 150 pounds. We used pressure 

 higher than that usually used; but I found it did not take as much gas by 

 keeping up a high pressure as it did when I was running on a low pressure. 

 When my tank was within a foot of being empty, then we run on a lower 

 pressure, so that when the last of it was sprayed out we never had over 

 75 or 80 pounds. We would start out and keep up to 140 or 150 pounds 

 until the very last, and then let it run down. I had a little trouble to start 

 with in the spring. I ordered a 200-gallon tank, and they did not have them, 



