New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 399 



gone out of bloom, and let the second be given about three weeks 

 later. Better results may be expected from the following 

 course of treatment, which is the one now recommended by this 

 Station : 



1. First treatment about May 25, or about ten days after the 

 blossoms have fallen. 



2. Second treatment about June 15, or three weeks after the 

 first. 



3. Third treatment about four weeks after the second. 



A comparison of the different series of treatments which were 

 made in 1895, see page 395, shows that when only three treat- 

 ments are given it is better to make the first treatment after, 

 rather than before, the blossoms open. 



Yield of Fruit Increased by Spraying for the Plum Leaf- 

 Spot. 



Aside from the results bearing directly on the questions under 

 investigation in 1895 and 1896, the experiments in treating plums 

 for the leaf-spot brought out some very important and definite 

 information as to the influence of such treatment on the yield 

 of trees which are subject to the attacks of this disease. It has 

 already been said that the injury from the leaf -spot was especi- 

 ally severe on the Italian Prune, sometimes called Fellemburg, a 

 variety which usually begins to ripen here the first week of Sep- 

 tember, Of the trees of Italian Prune which were under experi- 

 ment in 1896, see page 397, 48 were sprayed and 24 were left 

 unsprayed. As early as August 12 the ground under many of 

 the unsprayed trees was thickly strewn with fallen leaves, and 

 consequently the fruit was ripening and dropping prematurely, 

 while under the sprayed trees but very little fallen leaves or 

 fruit was to be seen. The amount of fallen leaves and fruit 

 was so much greater under the unsprayed trees that by look- 

 ing at the ground under them one could easily tell which trees 

 had not been sprayed. 



Because the treated trees held their foliage much better, their 

 fruit ripened later, and on the whole averaged larger than the 



