44 THE REPORT OF THE No. 1J> 



experiments are necessary however, to determine if the winter applications of the carboli* 

 wash will prove as successful as the summer ixpplications. 



The lime, sulphur and salt treatment, which the Efjsex fruit growers are using quite freely,' 

 is extremely cheap. Mr. J. D. Wigle, of Kingsville, tells me that it cost him but ten dollars 

 for outside help to spray forty apple trees and eight hundred peach trees with this mixture. 

 Mr. W. W. Hilborn, of Leamington, is also quite enthusiastic over the mixture. He had some 

 hesitation last spring in using it, but when he came to prepare it he found it much simpler than 

 he had expected. He used a boiler, which he procured for ten dollars, to supply the steam for 

 boiling the mixture. He used the 15, 15, 10 formula. The lime he slaked slowly in a coal-oil 

 barrel with four gallons of water ; then the sifted sulphur was added with stirring to the iiot 

 mixture, and the whole boiled for an hour ; then the salt was added and the mixture boiled for 

 half an hour longer. Mr. Hilb irn kept a second barrel of hot water always convenient. This 

 mixture was very effective, and I. failed to find a single scale at the time of my visit, August 

 27th. It was applied also against the Scurfy Bark Louse and the Oyster Shell Bark Louse, and 

 the results were extremely satisfactory, The township of Gosfield in which Kingsville is 

 situated passed a by-law last spring compelling treatment of infested orchards, and a township 

 sprayer, Mr. H. Bruner, was appointed to do the work whenever the owner hin^self cared not 

 to spray. The results were quite satisfactory to most of the fruit-growers, and they see now 

 the solution of this problem of the San Jose Scile. In the St. Catharines district, ho .\ ever, the 

 lime, sulphur and salt treatment has nut become popular, but no one seems to doubt its effect- 

 iveness against the scale. Mr. G. A. McBain has had a very inteiesting experiment under way, 

 testing the effectiveness of his "Carbolic Wash." (Plate 1.) He undertook to clean up the 

 Henry Kotlmeier orchard which contains about four hundred trees, mostly plum of five years' 

 growth. Mr. McBain has given the orchard three applications. The first was made with his 

 winter wash on the 28th and 29th of April, the second with the summer wash 

 on 14th and '15th of July, the third with his summer wash on the 14th and 

 15th of August. The winter application, although fairly satisfactory, did not kill all the scale, 

 but as large a percentage as one could naturally expect from the encrusted condition of the 

 trees. Besides Mr. McBain tells me that he could now guarantee a much larger percentage of 

 scale killed because be was afraid to use a stronger formula than the one he had been using in 

 California. I examined the orchard on the 14th of August, before the third application and 

 found but few scale on the trees. The trees looked healthy and had made a decided growth. 

 Some of the leaves of the trees had been singed by the summer mixture, but I think no 

 appreciable damage would be done. 



The McBain Carbolic Wash has been in use for some years in California as a scale remedy. 

 It is a black, oily liquid, and smells strongly of crude carbolic acid. The other ingredients are 

 pine tar and fish oil. The strong point in favor of this wash is the readiness and ease with 

 which the spraying liquid can be prepared. When a barrel of liquid is to be made up, 2 or 3 

 gallons of the black Carbolic Wash are placed in the barrel and cold water added. The wash 

 dissolves very readily, and the barrel of liquid has a milky appe a-ance. Another feature of 

 the preparation is that its application by the spray pump is not an unpleasant operation. The 

 operator does not need a special suit of old clothes, as he does if he were spraying crude 

 pe!:roleum, whale oil soap, or the lime, sulphur and salt mixture. 



In my judgment the points of the McBain Carbolic Wash which I have indicated are very 

 important ones in future operations against the San Jose scale, for experience proves that the 

 ordinary fruit grower is ii fluenced mightily by the character of the spraying operation. I 

 believe that the main reason why the crude petroleum, and the other ^^reparations which are 

 effective against the scale, did not take with the people was this very factor — the disagreeable 



