TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 71 



These extracts might be multiplied until reading them would occupy 

 hours; but I have certainly given already sufficient evidence that, by 

 spraying with the proper outfit, at the right time, and using certain mix- 

 tures, we can protect our fruit trees, shrubs, and vines from insects and 

 fungi. Naturally enough, those who have tried spraying speak only of 

 the effect on the fruit, or at least make this effect so prominent that the 

 effect on the tree or vine itself is lost sight of; but it is of the highest 

 importance to understand that spraying secures thrifty, healthy trees and 

 vines as well as perfect fruits. To have crops of fruits, we must have 

 living, healthy trees and vines; and recent years have shown that, to have 

 living, healthy trees and vines, we must protect them from a multitude of 

 fungous diseases and insect pests. It is these that have proved so 

 destructive in our orchards. Very many have not recognized the real 

 cause, and have ascribed orchard fatalities to change of climate, to wrong- 

 location, or to the weakening of the plant or tree through the highly 

 artificial conditions that have led to the increased fruitfulness of the tree 

 and the improved quality of the fruit One or more of these causes may 

 have some effect; but greater in their effects are the insects and fungi. It 

 is they that so weaken our trees and vines that rigors of climate or pecu- 

 liarities of soil, that otherwise would have a scarcely appreciable effect, 

 now destroy the thrift if not the very existence of our orchards. Note the 

 effects of spraying with the Bordeaux mixture, for example, in a vineyard 

 subject to black rot. This disease first attacks the vine, then the fruit. 

 The use of the Bordeaux mixture can be detected at a considerable distance 

 by the better appearance of the foliage. It is more vigorous, of a better 

 color, perfect, showing plainly health and thrift. By using the Bordeaux 

 mixture we get healthy, vigorous, thrifty vines and foliage, as well as 

 perfect fruit. So in the apple, or cherry, or plum, or pear orchard, in the 

 berry patch, or in the potato field, we get a stronger and a healthier 

 growth by spraying. If nine of each ten that find their orchard trees dead 

 by the time they are ready to bear, would use a spraying outfit wisely, they 

 would find it yet possible, and easily possible, to have thrifty orchards, 

 reasonable care and intelligence being used in other directions. 



We have now had at considerable length the " why " of spraying; what 

 of its "how" and "when?" At the best I can give only a few points 

 about the " how " and " when," but they will be safe and good as far as 

 they go, and will at least serve to demonstrate that spraying in all its parts 

 is easy, simple, and inexpensive. Any one with sense enough to cultivate 

 fruits can spray them. For the black rot or mildew of grape and pear, 

 and quince leaf-blight, and potato blight or rot, use the Bordeaux mix- 

 ture, which is made as follows: Dissolve six pounds of sulphate of copper 

 in sixteen gallons of water. In another vessel slake four pounds of lime 

 in six gallons of water. When this has cooled, pour it slowly into the 

 copper solution, being careful to mix the fluids thoroughly by constant 

 stirring. The water costs nothing, the lime costs next to nothing, and one 

 hundred pounds of the copper sulphate will cost you only seven cents per 

 pound. There is no danger in the mixing or in the use of this preparation. 

 To spray the average vineyard will cost, per acre, for labor and material, 

 per spraying, not more than one dollar. Without exaggeration, spraying 

 has paid some vineyardists one thousand per cent. 



But spraying will be of more general benefit when directed against the 

 curculio of the plum and apple and the codlin moth and canker worm of 

 the apple — those pests that have made the maturing of a plum crop an 



