332 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



deal of trouble before 1 used Bordeaux mixture, but I have very little 

 trouble now with plum rot, but I can not see wherein it would make 

 very much difference in regard to the pruning — whether it would help 

 or hinder rot. 



Professor Taft: So far as rot is concerned, it seems to me that this 

 thinning out will save the strength of the trees so that they will be less 

 likely to have rot, and I believe also that some of Mr. Stearns' freedom 

 from rot is owing to his use of wood ashes and things of that kind; 

 and Bordeaux mixture, I am convinced, if properly applied, will greatly 

 reduce it. I would first have a strong, healthy tree, and pruning of 

 course assists in that. 



Mr. Stearns: There is one point in regard to this spraying that I 

 consider very important, in regard to rot of the plum and the heading 

 off of the fungous diseases, of which I would like to speak; and that is, 

 spraying before the trees leave out. I want to emphasize that. I con- 

 sider that one spraying, thoroughly done then, is worth more than three 

 at any time afterward. It prevents scab or anything of that kind on 

 the tree. That is my experience, that one thorough spraying before the 

 trees leave out at all, before they blossom, is much better than several 

 later sprayings; and it should be done very thoroughly. Have the solu- 

 tion reach every part of the branches and body of the trees. If you do not, 

 it amounts to but very little. 



Mr. Kellogg: This year, Mr. Morrill, they had a great deal of trouble 

 about peach rot, in your vicinity. I would like to ask you if you found 

 that the peaches on trees pruned in this way rotted as badly as those 

 that were not so pruned. Does this process of shortening in strengthen 

 and build up a better texture in the fruit, that will enable it to resist 

 the fungus that causes the peach to rot? 



The President: I am very much undecided in that. I feel as though, 

 in my own trees, they suffered perhaps worse from rot owing to their 

 dense foliage. Some of the gentlemen remember, who were down there 

 last spring, that the foliage is extremely dense where trees are treated 

 in this manner, and that under the peculiar condition we had of damp- 

 ness and heat — a shower every day and a temperature of nearly one 

 hundred degrees — the foliage having prevented free circulation of air, 

 was against that. I believe that is true, because, on my older trees, 

 which had ceased producing that very rank growth after bearing several 

 crops, the rot was not nearly so bad. At the same time, if I had been 

 able to reach all of my peaches at the period in which most people pick 

 fruit, some time before it is ripe, I should have saved them; but my 

 policy has been to pick nothing but ripe fruit, and there was a condition 

 existing nearly a week in which I think I lost in four days a thousand 

 bushels of peaches by rot. 



Mr. Lj^on: Do you mean by ripe fruit that it is actually mellow? 



The President: No, not mellow, but just as near it as possible and still 

 be sound. Under these conditions a man could not work half the time, 

 on account of the showery periods, and the fruit ripened extremely fast. 



Mr. Kork: So far as the season of pruning is concerned, we never 

 prune anything in the fall. Many were doing it, and told us in the 

 beginning to do so. Nature, when she gets into winter quarters, says 

 to me she does not wish to be disturbed, and she never allows herself to 



