138 NEBRASKA STATE HOitTiCULTURAL SOCIETY. 



lurely early in late summer or early autumn, the plant food 

 fails properly to develop for the following spring. If they 

 come oat into blossom at all the blossoms will be weak so 

 that they may fall \Nilhout setting fruit, and if the tree has 

 failed during the previous summer and autumn to store up 

 the proper plant food supply, it is not apt to give the blossoms 

 the food material wliich is necessary to stand low temperature 

 or wet weather, and set fruit during the spring. In such 

 cases we mnj have a weak blossom and yet fail to set fruit. 



It is a notable fact that properly sprayed orchards carry 

 the leaves vigorous and green up to early autumn and winter, 

 while unsprayed trees have shed their leaves too early for the 

 proper food supply in the tree. In our own state the past 

 year Ben Davis apples in sprayed orchards generally set a. 

 good crop and matured a good crop of fruit. In unsprayed 

 orchards it Avas the complaint of the fruit growers that they 

 had no ])lossoms or that they had very little blossoms in the 

 spring, and wlmt few came out looked small, weak, and un- 

 developed. As a result, they had no fruit crop to spray for, 

 and it di<l not pay to spray, while. as a matter of fact this 

 was the best evidence possible that spraying should have 

 been performed in order that the trees might have had the 

 necessarv energv to make flowers and set fruit. 



Another example comes to my mind which tends to indicate 

 why some orchardists do not spray. In my own state a 

 leading orchardist who sprays has a very productive and 

 profitable orchard. Just across the road from hiui, on similar 

 land, another orchardist has an apple orchard of similar size 

 and age. The latter does not spray. During the World's 

 Fair at St. Louis, the writer had occasion to visit these 

 orchards when the apple crops were maturing. He drove 

 along the road between the two orchards in company with 

 the two owners. The gentleman who does not spray re- 

 marked : "Well I do not spray, the other man does, now look 

 at my orchard and see if it does not look just about as well 

 as the one that is sprayed." Strange to say, it did appear 



