EXPERIMENT STATION EEPORT. 613 



liime, Salphnr and Salt. 



This combination has remained the reliance of quite a number of 

 our fruit-growers, and results have been better, as a whole, than 

 during the year previous. On peach and plum some excellent work 

 has been done, and on apple and pear better effects have been 

 obtained in most cases. It seems now, by comparing applications, 

 that the amount of force behind the spray is a matter of great im- 

 portance. The tendency of the wash, especially when an excess of 

 lime is used, is to form a superficial coating, not closely applied to 

 the surface of either waxy twigs, like those of pear, or fuzzy shoots, 

 like those of apple. The natural inclination is to use a nozzle with 

 large opening, throwing a coarse or fan-shaped spray, which is di- 

 rected over a tree and allowed to fall down on it in a fine shower or 

 rain. This process covers, of course, but it does not drive the mixture 

 into close contact with the bark or the scales that set close to it. The 

 consequence is that two men may spray two similar trees, equally 

 infested, with the same kind of wash, at the same time, and yet obtain 

 dissimilar results. The man who applies a coarse spray, without much 

 force behind it, may cover a tree as completely as his neighbor, who 

 applies a fine spray with force enough behind it to drive it into close 

 contact with the bark, but in the first case the mixture may wash or 

 scale off without much harm to the insects, while in the latter the in- 

 sects are directly affected. It seems like a small matter, but it is really, 

 I believe, a vital one, and I am led to that belief because, in all the 

 successful cases examined, I found the lime particles in close contact 

 with the scales and surface. On peach and most plums the surface of 

 the bark seems to favor the adhesion of the lime particles. 



As to the formulas used, the tendency has been to lessen the amount 

 of lime so as not to exceed in weight the sulphur; to reduce the 

 amount of salt to about one-third the weight of sulphur, and to reduce 

 the time of boiling, fixing this rather by the appearance of the wash 

 than by an absolute period. There is the same complaint of trouble 

 in making and of the difSculties in application, l)ut as the fittings for 

 preparing the material become more complete the matter of applica- 

 tion also becomes better understood. 



In some of the fruit-growing districts in Delaware, peach-growers, 

 especially, depend altogether upon this combination, and seem to be- 

 lieve their trees benefited irrespective of scale infestation. I still 



