76 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pronounced success, and has come to stay. It is a necessity, if we wish 

 to raise good fruit. As said before, I have no new theories to advance, 

 but prefer to give you my own actual experience, knowing that most men 

 would far rather have one man's actual experience for their guide than 

 anything they might read upon the subject. 



For years previous to 1894 I had scarcely a sound apple in my orchard. 

 Some years it was difficult to get enough sound specimens to take to the 

 county fair. They were a lot of scabby, gnarly, wormy, worthless fruit. 

 I was so utterly disgusted with it that I was tempted to cut the orchard 

 down. But, having read a good deal about the benefits of spraying, I 

 determined to give it a fair trial. I will confess that it was with a strong 

 distrust in my mind, as a good deal that I had read came from the manu- 

 facturers *of spraying outfits, and I made considerable allowance for the 

 claims made for the benefits of spraying. I now beg to apologize to the 

 aforesaid manufacturers, as they are far more of a blessing to the country 

 than I was willing to give them credit for. 



In my experiment I used Bordeaux mixture altogether, using it at the 

 rate of eight pounds of vitriol and eight pounds of lime to fifty gallons of 

 water, for the first spraying, which was done in April, before the buds 

 had started. This was for scab. The work was done very thoroughly, 

 care being taken to wet the whole tree from the ground to the outermost 

 limb. The second spraying was done just after the blossoms were gone 

 and the little apples were formed. The third application was made ten 

 days later, with material just half the strength of the first spraying, and 

 with three ounces of Paris green added to each 50 gallons, for the last two 

 treatments. This was for the benefit of the codlin moth, and it proved 

 most effectual. 



In order to determine for a certainty whether it was the spraying, or 

 good cultivation, or good luck, that was to get the credit, if I had a good 

 crop, I left one tree of each variety (taking a row crosswise of the orchard) 

 without spraying. The result was simply astonishing; for, while the 



Another result of spraying was that, while the unsprayed trees 

 kept only a small portion of the fruit set, and that was scarcely fit for hog 

 feed, being small, scabby, and utterly worthless. 



I sold my crop in the orchard to an apple buyer at $1.50 per barrel, he 

 furnishing the barrels and doing his own packing. There were no sec- 

 onds in the lot — all firsts — and there were not culled out to exceed one 

 bushel in fifteen, and they were left because they were too small, some of 

 the trees being greatly overloaded and not properly thinned 



So it is perfectly apparent that every dollar I received from my apples 

 was clearly to the credit of spraying. 



Another result of the spraying was that, while the unsprayed trees 

 dropped their foliage early in October, and appeared dead, the sprayed 

 trees retained their foliage till snow fell; and while the untreated trees 

 were mossgrown and scurfy, the sprayed trees were as clean and bright 

 and healthy-looking as young trees just from the nursery. The same 

 difference could be noticed last spring, and was the wonder of all who 

 saw it. 



Another result, and to me the most important of all, is in the fact that 

 I have an abundant crop this year, 1895, on the same trees that bore so 

 heavily last year. 



