198 State Horticultural Society. 



eluded also arsenate of lead. This was what so completely con- 

 trolled the worms. The total cost of these six applications, includ- 

 ing labor, was 2214 cents per tree. Don't you believe it pays to 

 raise $3.00 fruit when the expenditure of 2214. cents per tree means 

 4 barrels of No. 1 grade to less than one of a lower grade? Of 

 course, there would have been some fruit without spraying, but I 

 venture the assertion that the owner would not have had a chance 

 to refuse $3.00 a barrel for it in that case. The orchard is some 

 12 or 14 years old, and has had, to be sure, better care than some 

 of the orchards with which it might be compared. 



Some of you know that the bureau of plant industry of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture the past season con- 

 ducted some demonstration work in spraying in the vicinity of 

 Bentonville, Arkansas, and at several other places. Some of the 

 results were almost beyond belief — in fact, quite beyond the belief 

 of some. I have no exact figures on the results, but a single example 

 may interest you. In a certain orchard at Bentonville a serious out- 

 break of bitter rot was threatened. Mr. W. M. Scott, the depart- 

 ment representative in charge of the work there, at once began 

 some spraying experiments, using liquid Bordeaux mixture, with 

 the object of controlling the disease. Six or seven applications 

 were made, costing about 15 cents per tree for material and labor. 

 When his final records were taken on Jonathan the last of August, 

 bitter rot had destroyed almost all the fruit on the unsprayed trees 

 and almost none on the sprayed trees. His records were made by 

 an actual count of the fruit — not merely by estimates. The finan- 

 cial question involved in these results is : Is a good crop of Jona- 

 than apple worth the outlay of 15 cents per tree, for the sake of 

 saving the crop? 



Another example involves more than merely spraying the 

 trees. It is a question of general orchard management. Two years 

 ago last August a certain man assumed the management of an or- 

 chard located in the "heart of the Ozarks," which had been badly 

 neglected. There were less than 30 acres actually occupied by the 

 trees, which were 13 and 16 years old. It had borne only one crop 

 of fruit previous to his assuming charge — that was in 1901. He 

 at once began to renovate the orchard; a shallow plowing and 

 pruning and cover crops followed. Then manure and fertilizers 

 were applied later, and in due time spraying was begun. To make 

 a long story short, this treatment resulted in a crop in 1905 of 534 

 barrels of No. 1 fancy fruit, which sold in February for nearly 

 $4.00 per barrel. This does not include the fruit that was below 



