EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT. 631 



Any difference in the result must l>e charged to a difference in 

 the action O'f the material applied. 



On this territory, too, while the boiled wash, made accord- 

 ing to the formula in Bulletin No. 169 was used as a rule, 

 there had been a number who had used the caustic soda coni- 

 bination without boiling and the results were approximately the 

 same. Yet others had used the simple solution of caustic soda, 

 usualh' at the rate of one pound in five gallons of water, and 

 there the result was uniform on all kinds of trees. It made the 

 bark look beautiful and cleaned off all the dead scales ; but it 

 left those that were dormant and furnished a nice clean place 

 for the young tO' set. 



During the past summer and fall, Mr. Dickerson and myself 

 covered almost the entire State in the course of nursery and 

 orchard inspections, and had opportunity to follow the results 

 of applications of the most diverse kinds. Incidentally, it also 

 developed the fact that most of our fruit growers are sub^ 

 scribers to one or more agricultural papers, and that they read 

 them. I do not believe there was a single formula published 

 during the winter of 1903-04 that was not used by some one. 

 Furthermore, it appears that papers run tO' localities ; one being 

 almost universally referred tO' in one section, while some other 

 was the favorite Elsewhere. We therefore found mieai w'ho 

 had combined lime and sulphur with the heat of the slaking 

 lime only; those that had omitted the salt in the boiling, and 

 those that had added everything they ever heard of to the mix- 

 tures. It is fair tO' say that almost all the lime and sulphur 

 combinations showed some benefit on peach and plum — even 

 the simple lime and sulphur combination ; but only the boiled 

 wash had produced any really satisfactory results in. actual re- 

 duction of infestation. On apple and pear the results were nil. 



During September I was in a large orchard of apple and pear 

 in Gloucester county, w hose owner "had in the past depended 

 entirel}^ upon crude oil for controlling the scale. The trees are 

 nearly all oid, in full bearing, the apple trees good for several 

 barrels each, and with a spread of from 20 tO' 40 feet. Trees 

 of this kind when once infested, can never be completely cleaned, 

 because of the impossibility of reaching all the insects by our 

 present mechanical devices, and spraying in some parts of the 

 orchard is necessary each year. Impressed with the reports 

 of the value of the lime, salt and sulphur, and the suggestion 

 that the continued use of the oil would eventually kill his trees, 

 he sprayed about half of the older trees with the boiled wash and 



