230 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 14 



Premature publication is common, while over-delayed publication is 

 rare. The mere fact that sulphur-lime sulphur-arsenate dust gave us 

 good results in 1920 is no warrant for me to recommend it as a practical 

 treatment, and assume that it will prove effective in 1921 and 1922. 

 Permit a digression here to state that one certainly recommends a 

 material or a practice if he submits a favorable report with favorable 

 conclusions to the general public who are likely to be influenced by it 

 in their commercial operations. If we do not secure consistently favor- 

 able results during at least three successive seasons, I do not believe 

 that we have any right to place suggestively favorable evidence before 

 the consuming public. By disregard of any such rule one not only does 

 an injustice to the horticulturist and the orchardist, but he actually 

 injures the status of plant patholog\' to a ver\^ serious extent. 



Let me quote from a couple of letters which happen to be from out- 

 side West Virginia but which describe the conditions in this state very 

 accurately. 



"We have a great many dust machines around among the growers 

 but these m.achines are lying idle this year." 



"For your information, I wish to state that the wTiter has personally 

 used the dusting method in his own orchard during the years 1917 and 

 191S upon apples at Springdale, Washington County, Arkansas, and the 

 results that we got at that time were ver}^ disastrous, as were results of 

 growers at Rogers and Bentonville of Benton County, Arkansas, during 

 those two years." 



I have recently talked with two of our largest and most progressive 

 commercial apple growers and these m.en have suffered extreme losses 

 as a result of their endeavors to control apple diseases (specifically scab) 

 by the use of sulphur dust. They made numerous applications. They 

 bent every effort toward accomplishing the desired end. They failed 

 disastrously. Both have definitely abandoned any further attempts 

 to use dust, and it will require extrem.ely convincing evidence before we 

 can ever induce them to take up dusting again, even in case improved 

 machinery and new dust mixtures should be found effective. The 

 seriousness of such a situation need hardly be pointed out, and we should 

 spare no efforts to avoid things of this kind. 



Personally, I am hopeful for the future of dust applications for the 

 control of many orchard diseases. I do not believe that dust will 

 entirely take the place of spray, but I do believe that it will eventually 

 fall into line and will be accepted as the best method for control of cer- 

 tain diseases under certain general conditions. At the same time I am 

 quite positive that there m.ust be improvem.ents made in the machinery 

 and in the nature of the dust applied before it can come into successful 

 general use among apple growers. 



