ORCHARD SPRAYING IN 1916. Ill 



the liability to damage from burning, fruit is easier picked, color 

 better, and it is invariably larger. 



I feel that the long continued cloudy weather during the 

 spraying period was largely responsible for the injured foliage. 

 I also believe that our orchard is pruned harder than any 

 other in the state, it is an annual affair with us, and yet at 

 every apple harvest I am impressed that we have too much wood 

 in the trees. This problem of pruning calls for more judg- 

 ment than any other operation in the orchard. 



If we could do all the pruning in the summer, with the 

 trees in full foliage, it would simplify matters tremendously. 

 But for various reasons that cannot be, and we have to do our 

 pruning in the winter and early spring. It is the seeing the 

 tree without foliage and at the same instant realizing what it 

 will look like next summer, that calls for the exercising of one's 

 best judgment. 



The past season the man that sprayed sufficiently to con- 

 trol the fungus did so at the expense of his trees, and if he 

 did not injure his trees he did not control the fungus. 



Mr. Powers : Is it advisable to prune any time during the 

 winter ? 



Mr. Simmons : It is considered that later in the spring it is 

 better but for myself, with so much of it to do, as soon as the 

 apples are out of the way I start to prune, and I prune all winter 

 long. I don't see that it makes any difference. 



Mr. Powers : Do you use the powdered arsenate of lead ? 



Mr. Simmons: We use the paste, simply because it mixes a 

 little easier. 



Mr. Powers: I want to ask another question and that is 

 about lime-sulphur. You know there is a dry solution made 

 down at St. Louis .and the liquid — which do you consider the 

 best? 



Mr. Simmons: I am unable to say, I always use the liquid 

 myself, never used the other. I have used bordeaux. 



Mr. Bingham : We have used a great deal of the paste and 

 also the dry arsenate of lead. I find no difference in the two in 

 controlling the apple codling moth or any of the insects except 

 perhaps the paste may stick a little better to the foliage. The dry 

 is much more economical to use, it doesn't waste if you have it 

 left over, while the other is injured by mixing, and I think the 

 arsenate of lead as made today is made very fine and is perhaps 

 more economical to use than the paste. You are paying freight 

 on 50 per cent, water, and in the paste you are not having any 

 loss if left over during the winter, and it mixes very readily with 

 the spray. 



Mr. Baldwin: I have found in the matter of spraying the 

 hardest proposition I was up against was to get at the principle, 

 what do I spray for, and I have that one question asked me, I 



