THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 307 



when it should take its last swell just before it ripens, and in either 

 ease it will be under sized in spite of all you may do, and in the case 

 of the hot spell it will ripen up soft and mushy. 



If, however, we have normal weather conditions such as we expect 

 and generally get in the coast valleys with mild, bright days and 

 cool nights with, perhaps, high fog, your fruit will grow and swell to 

 large size and ripen slowly with the firm, high-colored flesh that the 

 canners preserve in perfect condition, with the minimum of "pie," 

 and the drier can cure with a shrinkage sometimes much below 5 to 1. 

 Indeed, I have known Moorparks to run as low as 4|, but Blenheim 

 and Royal apricots average about 5 to 1. 



As to roots, I would use peach on open well drained land, but if you 

 plant on heavy land use good Myrobolan. My experience with apri- 

 cot root is that it is very brittle and tender and that gophers are 

 very fond of it. 



Prune your yearling trees low at time of planting and the next year 

 leave a pretty good length on the limbs selected for the main branches, 

 but cut the new wood shorter and shorter each year until on big trees 

 you are cutting off most of the new growth. Thin out the branches 

 so that every part of the tree Avill get plenty of sun and leave open 

 places where a ladder may be set in to thin and gather fruit without 

 breaking spurs and knocking down fruit. 



In thinning consider which spurs are strongest and most able to 

 bear a heavy crop and thin accordingly. A spur that is stout and 

 not too long and grows from a branch that is stout and healthy can 

 grow fruit almost touching and yet bring it up to size, especially if 

 other spurs or branches near by have little fruit ; but a long, weak spur 

 on a weak branch must ))e severely thinned out. If one side of your 

 tree has been injured by rain or otherwise so that there is no fruit on 

 it you can leave that on the other side somewhat thicker and still get 

 size. In thinning your fruit take off the apricots that are small or 

 defective and leave the good ones, and remember that an early start 

 and hence an early ending of the thinning helps much in the sizing 

 of the fruit. Very late thinning is of almost no benefit. 



There are several very serious diseases of the apricot, and while it 

 is possible to control them fairly well they cause a heavy expense 

 each year. One of the worst of these is the scale bug, the black and 

 bro^^^l, or Lecaniums as they are called. They become very plentiful 

 sometimes and sap the trees' vitality to noticeable extent. They exude 

 a sticky honeydew on leaves and fruit, in which a black fungus com- 

 monly called smut spreads rapidly, and I have seen orchards so bad 

 with scale and smut that the pickers would look like coal heavers who 

 had been shoveling dusty, soft coal, and the fruit was almost useless 

 for any purpose. Farmers get much advice first and last, and we 

 are often advised by the constituted authorities to let the natural, or 

 planted, enemies of the scale kill it off. They will do it to some extent, 

 and such a patch as the one described will probably be much better the 

 next year, and may be practically free from scale, but some other part 

 of the orchard will be bad and sooner or later it gets back again all over. 



The only safe way I have found is to spray with distillate or, per- 

 haps better, crude oil emulsion each year in the spring, and while this 

 will never exterminate the scale, it will reduce it to the minimum, and 



