158 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



the people do not understand it. I know tliat most of you are breeders 

 of live stock and I shall talk on that subject in a little while, but I beg 

 your leave to say as a preliminary, some of the things that the college 

 has done for the fruit growers in Missouri. I suppose that when the 

 fruit crop is killed at all. it is killed oftener by warm days in February 

 and March, causing the buds to swell, and afterwards by stinging freezes 

 — that kills the fruit crop in this State and especially the peach crop 

 oftener than any other single cause, and our college has discovered a 

 way, a very simple and inexpensive way in which that may be avoided 

 by any man who wants to avoid it. You have only to spray your trees 

 when the warm days come in February or March with a mixture of 

 common white wash and a little glue applied with a spray pump, any 

 farm hand can apply it, and I will guarantee to you that the remedy is 

 effectual. It is indeed a great discovery, but like other great discoveries. 

 It lay at the feet of the people for a long time until the college took it 

 up. Coming to America was a very simple matter as soon as Colum- 

 bus made the first discovery. The telephone is becoming a very simple 

 matter since Bell has invented it ; and so this method of saving the fruit 

 crop is very effectual and the college at Columbia discovered it first. 

 The Bulletin in which this experiment is described has been called for 

 by almost every civilized country in the world in which orchards are 

 subject to winter killing. It has been called for by nearly all the coun- 

 tries of Northern Europe. It has been called for all over the United 

 States and Canada and a large German University gave Prof. Whitten 

 the Ph. D. degree last spring upon a thesis written on this subject. It 

 has excited great attention in the Department of x-Vgriculture at Wash- 

 ington. It is a very simply remedy based on the scientific knowledge 

 that when a tree is white it will not absorb much heat ; when it is green 

 it absorbs heat very rapidly ; if, therefore, you leave your trees the 

 natural color they absorb heat at a great rate, but if you whiten them 

 they do not absorb heat enough to swell the buds. Any man in Mis- 

 souri whose orchard is suffering from winter killing can protect his 

 orchard by that very simple but effectual method. 



Again, in many parts of this State the woolly aphis has created great 

 damage in many orchards, very many, I believe in South Missouri. No 

 entomologist on earth ever discovered a remedy for the woolly aphis 

 until Prof. Stedman began to investigate it at Columbia. He discovered 

 two very simple, economical and effective remedies for combating the 

 woolly aphis. If you or your friends are troubled with this pest, all 

 you have to do is to write Mr. Stedman at Columbia, and he will give 

 you two very effective remedies for the woolly aphis. 



