PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 299 



the rot, even in the most unfavorable seasons; but occasionally rot does 

 spread in the orchards. Keep your men there to look after the orchards, 

 iiud at the first sign of a single rotting specimen, start them picking all 

 over the orchard, dropping the diseased fruits into a bag, not on the 

 ground, and carrying them off and burning them, bag and all. 



Curculio has not troubled us very much here at the north, but it is 

 going to; it is coming, sure, and we will have to contend with it. That is 

 another one of the blessings. It is going to thin out the fellow who has 

 not faith enough in himself and his peach trees to attend to them, and 

 then you will have a better market and that is what you are after. 

 While the curculio is not very prevalent in northern peach orchards, 

 it is in some sections. In our Georgia orchard last year there was a 

 considerable amount of curculio, considerable stung fruit. We did 

 nothing to fight it, because we did not discover it until it was well along 

 in the season and it was practically too late. I resolved this year, and 

 planned a campaign to fight the curculio. So, early in the season, when 

 the fruit was as well set and as large as hazelnuts, we made some 

 experimental jarrings and found the creature was there. We then made 

 «ome trays, taking thin lath material about fourteen feet long, bending 

 it to a half circle and then putting a thin piece of lath aeross the side 

 and covering it with heavy cotton sheeting. We had a large tray, a half- 

 moon tray, fastening a cord at each lower end and up toward the center 

 and to one central cord, so that you could grasp it in jonr hand and carry 

 the tray out and put it under the tree, and all this brought together 

 under the tree gave us an inverted umbrella-like affair. Then we took 

 ehibs an inch in diameter, of oak, and padded the ends with rubber, and 

 then got out fifty people and put them on twenty-five rows of trees. Our 

 orchard is set in blocks a thousand feet long and five hundred wide, 

 seventeen miles of trees in the orchard; and instead of lengthwise of the 

 row we went crosswise. We had fifty people with each one of these out- 

 tits, and they got under twenty-five rows of trees, and at a word of com- 

 mand from the foreman, bang! (or two bangs) went on each side of the 

 tree, and quickly to the next tree and under it, and bang! again, and so on 

 across the field, across the plot of 500 feet; and by keeping constantly 

 moving the curculio that dropped on the sheet would not stir nor try to 

 get off, as they would if you gave them a moment's rest; and when we 

 got across to the other side there were little darkey boys with kerosene 

 buckets, and there the curculios were dumped into the kerosene and put 

 into the barrels that were waiting. The men were given a rest, and then 

 across the field again, took a little rest, and then hurriedly back and forth; 

 and we "banged" those trees seven long weeks, fifty people at it every 

 day. Those southern people said, "Those Yankees are a curious lot; 

 Hale is knocking off his green peaches"; and we did, because that jar 

 would take off certain peaches, but we kept at it seven weeks, and the 

 adjoining orchard, which had a better show of fruit in April than we 

 luid, marketed eighteen carloads of second-class fruit, all more or less 

 €urculio-stung, bringing a net profit of a little less than $300 per car. 

 We marketed sixty cars of fruit, and over fifty of it were of absolutely 

 sound fruit, and the net profit on each car was a little over $500, or about 

 ^30,000 for the orchard, net, and I am satisfied that that fight of seven 



