FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 123 



show on the leaves and, if the attack is severe, may cause many to drop 

 besides seriously injuring the others. 



For fifteen years, we have had a very effective treatment against this 

 disease in Bordeaux mixture, a combination of lime and sulphate of 

 copper, used at the rate of one pound of each to ten or twelve gallons 

 of water. If the leaves and fruits are covered with this, before the spores 

 have germinated, all danger of attack will be prevented. It combines 

 with white arsenic and Paris green, so that it is possible to use a fungicide 

 and an insecticide in one application. The treatments recommended for 

 the insects, should be made at the same dates as are desired for the fungi. 

 Those made just before and after the blossoming period are of most impor- 

 tance. In some cases a single application after the blossoms show, but 

 before they open, has saved the crop from destruction by the apple-scab 

 fungus. The only difficulty is that showers at this time often render 

 spraying impossible and, at best, the period is not long enough to get 

 over large areas. For this reason, it is recommended that the trees be 

 sprayed with a solution of copper sulphate in April, and that so much of 

 the orchard as possible be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture after the 

 flower buds show but before the petals open. By the use of four applica- 

 tions of Bordeaux mixture, such varieties as Fameuse and others that are 

 especially subject to scab, can be grown without serious injury. In our 

 experiments in spraying apples on trees forty years old, we have been 

 able to make a difference in the number of scabby fruits of eighty per cent. 

 Eighty-seven per cent of the unsprayed fruit being scabby, and a majority 

 were so badly diseased that most of them were graded No. 2, at best, 

 while the sprayed fruit had but seven per cent with any scab at all, and 

 very few of these had enough to greatly affect their market value. 



With a modern pump, a tank, and other approved spraying machinery, 

 the labor of spraying has been reduced at least three-fourths as compared 

 with what is was fifteen years ago. In the light of recent experience, it 

 is hard to see how any one can engage in commercial apple culture and 

 expect to make a success unless he practices spraying. To secure the best 

 results from spraying, one should know when to spray, what to spray 

 with, and how to apply it to get the best results. Ideal spraying consists 

 in keeping the foliage and fruit covered with the spraying mixture from 

 the time growth starts until danger from insect and fungous attack is 

 over, and unless this is done perfect results cannot be secured. Early 

 and thorough spraying will be needed. 



While the recommendations regarding pruning, cultivation, manuring 

 and spraying may appear to some of you to be theory, I wish it under- 

 stood that, on the contrary, they are based on the practical experience of 

 some of the best apple growers in Michigan, New York and other states. 

 You have all heard of the five hundred dollar crops of peaches taken from 

 an acre of land in the Michigan peach belt. I can refer you to apple 

 orchards that, during the last five years, have given larger returns than 

 have come from nine-tenths of these peach orchards. For the most part, 

 these have been years of partial failure in apple orchards and. except that 

 these orchards were on good soil and in favorable locations, they were not 

 model orchards ten years ago, but by thorough and persistent work along 

 the lines indicated the trees have been reclaimed from their barren condi- 



