Notes hij the Secretary. 67 



are known. AVe know how to destroy the apple moth ; but most of 

 us neglect to do it. Here is occasion for the most zealous mis- 

 sionar}' work of horticultural societies. We have first to convert 

 our own members, and then to save the rest of the apple growers. 

 With the means for the almost total extirpation of this evil within 

 reach of every orchardist, I do hope that the wasteful and sinful 

 neglect which has characterized our apple management will not 

 long continue. 



I alluded to that disease of peach trees which baffles the peach 

 grower wherever it prevails. Luckily it does not afflict all sections 

 of our country ; and there are large districts of peach growing ter- 

 ritory where nothing hinders the growing of good peach crops ex- 

 cept that supreme laziness of men which permits the almost uni- 

 versal destruction of these crops by that omnipresent foe, the alert 

 and versatile curculio. There is a district in this valley as large as 

 the German empire, where the climate and soil are congenial to 

 peach trees, where no ^'yellows" ever invade, where crops 

 could be had half of the year, where these crops would bring 

 greater profits than any other line of horticultural production, 

 and yet the peach orchards of this region are declining in amount 

 year by year, for the simple and only reason that their owners don't 

 like to catch "bugs."' Peaches are worth ^4 or 15 a busliel in the 

 market, and careful accounts of the labor of thorough curculio 

 protection show that it costs but about seven cents a bushel for the 

 crop saved and marketed ; and yet the majority of our peach orch- 

 ard owners fold their arms in dignity and say that if they "'can't 

 grow peaches without killing bugs they won't have peaches'' — and 

 they don't. True, tliey send to market some small per cent, of a 

 cro]? of half ripened, gummy, wormy, rotting peaches, and receive 

 back more curses than dollars therefor. But such a thing as a full 

 sized crop of sound, red faced, melting, delicious, wealth bringing, 

 beautiful j^eaches, these men have never beheld ; and they will not 

 until somebody can persuade them of a fair margin of profit in the 

 transaction of bug killing on the basis of the figures I have given. 

 It is a painful fact that peach growing throughout most of this fav- 

 ored region is but a sad mockery of a noble and lucrative avocation. 



The apple moth and the curculio are the two most destructive 

 enemies that infest the orchard. They are found everywhere in 

 this valley where fruit trees are grown. They seem to have been 

 sent us from Providence, to test the worthiness of man to have 

 fruit. They are both perfectly, or sufficiently, under the control 

 of good orchard management, and yet they are allowed to lay waste 



