Wifiter Meeting. 197 



sufficient space and apportions enough food to permit of a strong, 

 vigorous development of those that ramain. It naturally follows 

 that some varieties need much more pruning than others, in ordsr 

 to control this feature of their growth. 



If an orchard is worth cultivating and feeding and pruning, 

 then it is surely worth spraying. If it isn't sprayed, the bugs and 

 fungi may be depended upon to get a share of the fruit that is en- 

 tirely out of proportion to their deserts, to say nothing of the num- 

 ber of trees that they will sooner or later claim. Yet I suppose 

 that fully one-half of the sprayiny; that is done is ineffective or only 

 partially so, and for one or more of four reasons : it is done at the 

 wrong time ; or with the wrong material ; or with the material im- 

 properly made; or, if the time and material are correct, the appli- 

 cations are not made with sufficient frequency, thoroughness or 

 care. 



In many apple orchards in the section under consideration, 

 the percentage of No. 2 and cull fruit the past season was propor- 

 tionately very large, and, in a great number of instances, due to 

 causes that are preventable in a very large degree. The most 

 common causes were codling moth, curculio stings, bitter rot and 

 phillosticta ("apple blotch" has been suggested as a common name 

 for this disease.) The latter disease is comparatively new as a 

 serious matter, and in many instances it has been confused with 

 "apple scab," which is quite a dift'erent disease. There was an un- 

 usually small amount of scab the past season, and it was because 

 of this fact that the apples looked, on casual examination, to be so 

 clean and of such high grade, when in reality there were many 

 culls in a large number of orchards. 



But to talk in generalities about spraying is useless. Some 

 specific illustrations will show you better what can be accomplished 

 by really thorough spraying. I was in one orchard in this State 

 early in September, owned by a member of this Society, be it said, 

 who, I was told, offered a premium of 25 cents for every wormy 

 apple that could be found in the orchard. This, however, was not 

 told me on the authority of the owner. But, be that as it may, 

 wormy apples were exceedingly difficult to find, for I tried to find 

 some and couldn't. The orchard contains 400 trees, mostly Ben 

 Davis. In a letter received from the owner recently, he stated, in 

 response to my request for information, that these trees bore 1,950 

 barrels of fruit, 1,500 of which were No. 1, and the gratifying part 

 of it is, he was offered $3.00 per barrel. It was sprayed six times 

 with Bordeaux mixture. I think a portion of the applications in- 



