EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 347 



REPORT OF SOUTH HAVEN SUB-STATION. 



Bulletin 152. — Horticultural Department. 



Prof. L. R. Taft, Horticulturist: 



Sir — In submitting the following report of operations at this sub-sta- 

 tion, during the portion of the year 1897 already elapsed, I take occasion 

 to state that, owing doubtless to the exhaustion consequent upon the 

 excessive crop of last year, together with the unusually prevalent low tem- 

 peratures of the past spring, the fruit crop at this sub-station has, in very 

 many cases, failed to fulfil even its early promise. 



Snow fell here, in considerable quantity, as late as April 20, disappear- 

 ing very slowly, the mercury ranging as low as 21° on the morning of the 

 21st. The weather continued cold, dry and otherwise unfavorable most of 

 the time, till near the middle of June, at about which time the first copious 

 rains occurred. 



A careful examination by yourself, in March last, having betrayed the 

 presence of San Jose scale upon a couple of small pear trees, planted in 

 the spring of 1896, they were at once treated, under your direction, with an 

 application of undiluted kerosene, which effectually exterminated the pest 

 with no apparent injury to the tree-growth, which, at the time, was 

 entirely dormant. 



Your examinations at that time also betrayed a considerable prevalence 

 of the Putnam scale. This was, therefore, at once treated with a thorough 

 application of an emulsion of kerosene and whale oil soap, under your 

 direction and supervision, which proved very effective. 



In this report, as in preceding ones, the rules of Pomology of the Amer- 

 ican Pomological Society, which are also adopted by the National Division 

 of Pomology, are as far as practicable applied to the names of the fruits 

 reported. 



In applying the spirit as well as the letter of these rules, we are antago- 

 nized by several more or less objectionable practices, now common among 

 the originators and introducers of new varieties, aad which too frequently 

 prove sources of error in nomenclature, with multiplication of synonyms, 

 and occasionally of objectionable prolixity in names. 



Among these we note the following: 



1. The disseminating of varieties under numbers, or under the origi- 

 nator's name, with a number attached, which, when peimanently named, too 

 frequently becomes the occasion, if not of error, at least of a multiplication 

 of synonyms. 



2. The use of coarse, rowdyish, pretentious or sensational names not 

 uii frequently applied with the apparent purpose of promoting sales, with 

 no apparent regard to actual value. 



