THE ORANGE MOTH. 65 



object was to get a little cheap advertising — that all 

 American apples were saturated with arsenic. This state- 

 ment was reproduced in many newspapers, and, as the 

 original paper which started the falsehood, in a later issue, 

 gloated over the fact that these articles were copied all 

 over the world, the paper thus showed its hand — it 

 wanted to get cheap advertising. The statement is absurd 

 that any apple or other living vegetable tissue can be 

 saturated with arsenic, from the fact that the poison is so 

 exceedingly corrosive that before any vegetable could 

 become saturated, even if this were possible, it would be 

 destroyed before the poison could penetrate. The only 

 suggestion of truth in regard to this statement is that we 

 do spray our orchards with Paris green, which is an aceto- 

 arsenite of copper. But that is not arsenic ; it is an 

 arsenical compound containing about 45 per cent, of 

 soluble arsenic ; but it must be remembered that this is 

 not the same by any means as arsenic, which is soluble, 

 while Paris green is almost insoluble ; so it is not at all 

 like putting on our trees a mixture containing 45 per 

 cent, of soluble arsenic. It is only an insoluble compound 

 which, by the special treatment recommended, never can 

 and never does get into the fruit. Then, besides this, 

 it is applied at the small rate of 1 lb. to 200 gallons 

 or more of water. This quantity of water is sufficient 

 to spray a great many trees — a tree of ordinary size 

 takes from one to three gallons — and these trees bear 

 many hundreds of apples, and thousands of leaves, so 

 that there would be only a very minute quantity of poison 

 on each fruit. Even supposing soluble arsenic were used, 

 and every apple were covered with it, none could get into 

 the apples. At the time apple trees are sprayed the fruit 

 is very small, indeed hardly formed, and is then protected 

 from anything falling on it by a thick covering of down 

 and the spreading lobes of the calyx. In spraying, the 

 liquid is applied as a very fine mist ; most of this falls 

 on the foliage ; but some — a minute quantity — falls into 

 the open calyx, where the eggs of the codlin moth are 

 laid. It is an infinitesimal quantity, yet is sufficient to 



