RECENT ADVANCEMENT IN HORTICULTURE. 137 



Aiiother point wliiith needs empliiisis in view of spraying 

 for the goocl of the tree itself, is the fact that we may keep 

 the leaves in good health and enable the tree to carry the 

 leaves through autumn up to cold weather in early winter. 

 Again, 1 do not know whether your apple trees in unsprayed 

 orchards custoiuarily shed their leaves, or have the leaves lose 

 their green in late summer or early autumn. With us it 

 generally happens, however, that unsprayed orchards fail 

 to hold their leaves late enough. Even before the crop of 

 fruit is gathered, if there is a crop of fruit, the leaves on the 

 trees begin to fall, or prematurely lose their green color, look- 

 ing dull and sickly. In some unsprayed orchards, some years, 

 I have seen the trees almost bare before time to gather the 

 fruit in the fall, and have seen at least fair crops of fruit 

 harvested from trees whose leaves were all shed at the time 

 the apples were picked. This is a condition of affairs which 

 very seriously hinders the setting of a crop of fruit buds for 

 the subsequent season. 



It should be borne in mind that the blossom buds on an 

 apple tree form during the summer and autumn previous 

 to the spring when they blossom and set fruit. At least as 

 early as June in our state, and I presume also in yours, the 

 flowers for next year may be found to be forming down in the 

 fruit buds of the apple tree. Thousands of sections of fruit 

 buds by microscopic examination made by us during the last 

 few years show that these fruit buds continue to gi'ow and 

 develop throughout most of the summer and the autumn. 

 In order to protect them, it is necessary that the trees have 

 green, healthy, vigorous foliage in order that these buds for 

 the following spring may be developed and matured. 



It is also important that the apple trees retain vigorous, 

 green foliage throughout the season in order that plant food, 

 largely in the form of starch, may be abundantly stored up 

 in the buds and twigs and crowns of the tree to start it into 

 growth the following spring and get it vigorous enough that 

 its blossoms can set fruit. Where the leaves are shed prema- 



