No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 611 



venient to handle and prepare than lime, sulphur and salt. If I 

 were to live twenty-five years, and would be obliged to grow fruit 

 by spraying with lime, sulphur and salt, I think I would go out of , 

 the fruit business. 



If the soluble oils can be furnished at a reasonable price, and 

 their continued use does not prove injurious to trees, they are des- 

 tined to come into popular favor. I am hoping that they will prove 

 the 'Moses' that will lead us out of the wilderness. 



MR. McMILLAN.— I have been much interested in Mr. Brown's 

 remarks since I have had some experience in the use of the dif- 

 ferent spraying materials. I have used the soluble oils, and while 

 I have seen some good results where strong percentages were used, 

 on the whole, they have not proven so effective as the lime-sulphur- 

 salt. I have had first-class results with the latter material on peach 

 and plum especially, though not quite so good on apple. On peach 

 trees near Harrisburg, sprayed last week of April, 1905, with regular 

 Lime-S.-S., it was impossible to find any young crawling scale in 

 July and August. These trees were badly infested with living 

 scale before spraying. I do not see what better results one could 

 expect than this. 'Mr. Brown speaks of killing 95 per cent, to 97 

 per cent, of the scale with soluble oils. If one per cent, of the scales 

 on a moderately infested tree be left alive the results may not be 

 considered satisfactory, and in some of our experiments less than 

 one per cent, were left alive. Five per cent, or even two per cent, 

 of live scales remaining on a tree will be sufficient to reinfest it 

 badly by September or October. 



I have been in Blair county recently where there are a number of 

 orchards containing from one to five thousand trees and where they 

 have been spraying with the lime-sulphur-salt wash, there is little or 

 no scale. In addition to being an effective insectiside the L.-S.-S. is 

 a valuable fungicide, as we heard Prof. Waite declare in his lecture. 

 This was very evident upon the trees in Blair county from the ap- 

 pearance of the foliage and general condition of the trees. The bark 

 was bright in color and smooth in appearance, with none of the char- 

 acteristic brown blotches of the Monilia or "Brown Rot." Near 

 Frankstown, Blair county, the owners of a large orchard have spray- 

 ed their trees regularly every spring with L.-S.-S. There is no scale 

 to be found on them but the owners declare they will continue to 

 use this material every year simply because of its value as a fungi- 

 cide. 



One great objection to the commercial oil preparations is their 

 excessive cost, which operates against their introduction for general 

 use. It seems unreasonable to sell a preparation of this kind, that 

 is nearly pure oil, at $1.00 to $1.50 per gallon when refined petro- 

 leum can be bought at 15 cents a gallon retail. Even when sold at 

 50 cents, the mixture when diluted will be more than twice as ex- 

 pensive as lime and sulphur, and this amounts to quite an item in 

 large orchards. Many persons hesitate considerably on the expense 

 of spraying. I have heard Prof. Surface and others express their 

 opinion that nearly all of these ardent advocates of commercial in- 

 secticides are interested directly in a percentage on their sales. It 

 would also seem so in this case. Further careful experiments will 

 be made however, and if it can be proven that the oil remedies are as 



