96 PEACH LEAF CURL: ITS NATURE AND TREATMENT. 



Later in the winter Mr. A. D. Cutts, one of the proprietors and the 

 superintendent of the orchard, had these marked trees thoroughly- 

 sprayed with sulphur, lime, and salt, the formula used being as fol- 

 lows: Sulphur 15 pounds, lime 30 pounds, salt 10 pounds, water 60 

 gallons. 



While this spray was known to be effective against San Jose scale, 

 it also proved very effective against curl, which developed seriously 

 in the orchard in the spring of 1893. The result of the spraying was 

 to produce a most striking effect. When the disease developed, the 

 unsprayed trees, which represented the major portion of this 40-acre 

 orchard, were almost wholly denuded of foliage and largely of fruit, 

 while the sprayed trees, scattered through the block, were in full foliage 

 and fruit. This orchard was selected as a very suitable place in which 

 to study the relative thrift and number of fruit buds and spurs pro- 

 duced on sprayed and unsprayed trees for the year following, and for 

 this purpose 20 trees were selected from this block in February, ISQtt. 

 Ten of these trees had been sprayed in the winter of 1892-93, and had 

 thus escaped serious injury from curl in the spring of 1893, while 10 

 of them had not been sprayed and had suffered considerably^ from the 

 disease. These 20 trees were all Crawfords Late, 5 years old in the 

 winter of 1893-91, and similar in other respects, the soil, situation, 

 etc. , being the same. 



The work of counting and grading buds upon these sprayed and 

 unsprayed trees was begun about the middle of February, 1894, and 

 continued for a week, an equal amount of time being given to each tree. 

 To make all records as representative as possible of all portions of the 

 trees studied, the limbs were measured and the buds counted and classi- 

 fied upon different sides of each tree and upon both lower and upper 

 limbs. In the selection and measurement of limbs, as well as in the 

 counting and classification of the buds, an effort was made to correctly 

 represent the conditions existing in all parts of each tree, and of all 

 trees alike. After the selection of a limb for study, all wood grown 

 prior to 1893 was measured and the length recorded. Following this 

 all the shoots and spurs of 1893 growth, and arising from the old 

 wood measured, were counted and the number set down. All these 

 new shoots, with the exception of fruit spurs 4 inches or less in length, 

 were then measured. Records were kept of the length of the new 

 shoots, the number of well-developed fruit buds, the number of poorly 

 developed fruit buds, and the number of leaf buds they bore. A 

 record of the number of lateral shoots and fruit spurs from the growth 

 of 1893 was also preserved. The results of this work are brought 

 together in the two tables which follow: 



