Page 4 



now in general use in California, but 

 all these are reduced to a liquid for 

 spraying purposes. Dry arsenate of 

 lead is now in almost universal use, and 

 a dry form of lime-sulphur is rapidly 

 supplanting the customary liquid lime- 

 sulphur in the principal fruit districts. 

 Dry Bordeaux, which is added to water, 

 is now similiarly being used by those 

 who prefer Bordeaux to lime-sulphur 

 or require it for certain purposes. The 

 dry lime sulphur is mixed with water 

 for spraying. 



Beginning with the season of 1921, 

 the Deciduous Fruit Station has been 

 making extensive tests of dust sprays 

 against brown rot. Judging from the 

 results secured by peach growers on 

 the Atlantic coast, first-class control by 

 dusting is scarcely to be expected. How- 

 ever, if the apricot growers, for ex- 

 ample, are prevented from spraying 

 with liquids at the proper time on ac- 

 count of rains or wet soil, they would 

 be content with a lower degree of con- 

 trol if this could be obtained by some 

 other means, as by the use of a dust. 

 The advantage of the dust will lie in 

 the ability of the grower to get on the 

 land with a lighter spraying outfit and 

 be able to spray his trees much more 

 quickly. Dusting outfits, as used 

 against thrips in prune orchards for ex- 

 ample, are able to cover from four to 

 thirty-five or forty acres a day, de- 

 pending upon whether a hand outfit or 

 a gasoline power outfit is used. 



Arsenate of lead as a dust has never 

 been used, except in a very small way 

 against such insects as the codling moth, 

 and where it was employed it was not 

 an unqualified success. The future de- 

 velopment of dry sprays as insecticides 

 seems to lie in the direction of those 

 that give off fumes rather than in the 

 use of arsenicals. What the future holds 

 for dust as fungicides is problematical. 

 Probably they will always be of only 

 secondary value for the purpose, but 

 even so they would have a place in the 

 fruit grower's program and might be 

 expected to be highly valued under the 

 special conditions under which they are 

 employed. 



Dusting Costs 



TN FIGURING the relative cost of 

 -*- dusting and spraying, Prof. H. H. 

 Wihetzel, plant pathologist of Cornell 

 University, says that the time and labor 

 saved in dusting may more than offset 

 the relatively high cost of dusting ma- 

 terial and that, if the factor of valuable 

 time saved for other work be added dust- 

 ing will have to be regarded as much 

 the cheaper orchard practice. 



"Why have fruit growers everywhere 

 looked with such hope and favor upon 

 this new method of applying fungicides 



BETTER FRUIT 



and insecticides?" asks Prof Whetzel 

 in a paper presented before the New 

 York State Horticultural Society. "Not 

 primarily because you have seen in it 

 a more effective means of controlling 

 diseases and insect pests, but because 

 you have discerned in it at once certain 

 efficiencies and advantages over the ap- 

 plication of fungicides and insecticides 

 in liquid form. 



"No intelligent and practical grower 

 or expert would argue as yet that dry 

 materials as such are more effective 

 than liquid sprays. That their success- 

 ful application in dry forms assures 

 certain distinct advantages of decided 

 economic value everyone has appreciated 

 and acknowledged from the beginning; 

 greater rapidity of operation and con- 

 sequent saving of valuable time and 

 expensive labor; more timely applica- 

 tion and thereby more uniformly effec- 

 tive control ; elimination of the undesir- 

 able waterhaul and its attendant diffi- 

 culties, all these have been acknowl- 

 edged without question or debate." 



In a questionnaire sent out by Prof. 

 Whetzel, the following results were 

 shown : 



"Did you dust your apples this past 

 season? Yes 73. 



"Did dusting control scab as well or 

 better than spraying? Yes 49, No. 9. 

 (Three were in doubt, twelve did not 

 answer.) 



"Did dusting control codling moth as 

 well or better than spraying? Yes 51, 

 No 6. (Two were in doubt, 14 did not 

 answer.) 



"Will you dust apples next season ? 

 Yes 68, No. 4. (One is in doubt.) 



"Evidently apple dusting still looks 

 good to about 95 per cent of the duster 

 owners in this state. 



"Recently I visited the Annapolis 

 Valley, the great apple growing section 

 of Nova Scotia. Picking of Graven- 

 steins and some other early varieties 

 was just beginning so that I had an 

 excellent opportunity to see the fruit 

 on the trees in its finished conditions. 

 I visited many of the commercial or- 

 chards throughout the valley. Some 50 

 dusters were in use in this region. Every 

 dusted orchard visited showed practic- 

 ally as good or better control of scab 

 and insects than did the sprayed or- 

 chards. In a season said to have been 

 the worst scab year since 1913 with un- 

 sprayed Gravensteins running approx- 

 imately 100 per cent scabby, actual 

 counts made by Professor Sanders in 

 the orchard of C. M. Roscoe, dusted but 

 three times, showed 91 per cent abso- 

 lutely scab free fruits as against 97.5 

 per cent scabby on undusted check trees 

 of the same variety in the same orchard. 

 I found every dust user I met not only 

 satisfied but enthusiastic over dusting. 

 It was the consensus of opinion among 



June, 1921 



growers, investigators and fruit inspec- 

 tors with whom I talked that dusting 

 would very rapidly replace spraying 

 throughout the valley. 



"Considering the question then of the 

 efficiency of dusting for scab and 

 worm control on apples, on the basis 

 of, first, experimental evidence and sec- 

 ond, the opinion of the growers who 

 dusted the past season, one is forced to 

 the conclusion that dusting wins. 



"In spite of the fact that the evi- 

 dence at hand clearly proves dusting 

 to be quite as effective as spraying for 

 the control of scab and worms, I am 

 well aware that its general adoption as 

 a substitute for spraying largely de- 

 pends upon the solution of certain ac- 

 cessory problems. The most important 

 of these is an effective contact dust, a 

 dust that will kill sucking insects like 

 the aphis, red bug, psylla and the like. 

 The problem clearly lies within the en- 

 tomological field but it cannot be di- 

 vorced from the problem of scab con- 

 trol." 



Refrigerator Ships 



APPLE growers of Oregon and 

 -^*- Washington will be asked to co- 

 operate with the citrus growers of Cali- 

 fornia in utilizing the Panama canal 

 and the new refrigerator ships now be- 

 ing developed for shipments direct to 

 Europe through the canal. Shipping 

 agents are arranging for many thous- 

 ands of carloads of citrus fruits and 

 northwestern apples to be handled in 

 this manner. 



The steamer Charles H. Cramp has 

 been converted into a floating labora- 

 tory, plying between the Pacific Coast 

 and the eastern seaboard through the 

 canal, to determine the best conditions 

 for the handling of citrus fruits and 

 apples. Cargo space has been divided 

 into compartments in which different 

 conditions can be produced and con- 

 trolled. In the tests it will be made pos- 

 sible to make records under variable 

 transit conditions. Factors to be studied 

 include the temperature, ventilation and 

 humidity both individually and in com- 

 bination. 



On the first shipment of northwestern 

 apples a 40 degree refrigeration will 

 be experimented with. This test may 

 be made in June. 



"JT IS not realized generally that farm- 

 ers and fruit-growers own and oper- 

 ate fully fifty per cent of the automo- 

 biles and trucks in this country, the 

 total of which now exceeds 9,000,000. 

 They wore out half at least of the 24,- 

 000,000 tires used last year and will 

 buy their share of the 27,000,000 tires 

 required this year to keep the cars run- 

 ning. 



