52 



thrifty condition. The weather of the days during- which the old- 

 er peach-trees were sprayed was somewhat unfavorable, with fog's, 

 mists, and cloudy sky. No harm was done to apple or quince. A few 

 of the pear-trees had died after being- sprayed, but as the blig-ht was 

 prevalent on the place, their death was probably due to that disease. 

 An apple orchard belong-ing- to Mr. I. N. Lowe, near Auburn, in 

 Sang-amon county, sprayed with a 25 per cent, emulsion showed 

 no sig-n of injury on the 12th of the following- July, and a few 

 peach-trees on these premises treated in the same way and at the 

 same time were also unharmed. 



Field Use of the Lime, Salt, and Sulphur Wash. 



From December 9, 1901, to April 15, 1902, all peach-trees receiv- 

 ing- insecticide treatment by my field parties were sprayed with few 

 exceptions with a mixture of lime, sulphur, and salt, known as 

 the " California wash, " and as a matter of convenience in spray- 

 ing- mixed orchards, some trees of other kinds received the same 

 treatment. This wash was used on 433 different premises in 13 

 infested districts, but owing- to occasional deficiencies in detail in 

 operators' reports the total number of trees to which it was ap- 

 plied cannot be precisely g-iven. Separate mention is made of its 

 use, however, on 4,976 peach-trees, 463 plum, 586 apple, 111 pear, 

 31 quince, and various other kinds sufficient to bring- the distin- 

 guishable total up to 9,000 trees. 



During- this period of four months of southern Illinois winter, 

 the weather was, of course, widely various. The season was, as a 

 whole, rather unusually favorable to insecticide work, but rains, 

 sleets, snows, and freezing- weather came frequently enough to test 

 quite fully the g-eneral effect of the weather on the efficiency of the 

 insecticide. Althoug-h no exact account of the results over all the 

 great area treated can now be given, a general statement may be 

 made that the effect has been excellent and entirely satisfactory so 

 far as I now can judge. 



To secure an exact basis for a general judgment of the out- 

 come I sent Mr. Titus in August, 1902, to examine orchards 

 treated with this wash the previous winter and spring, and I have 

 his report of the results of an inspection of 25 orchards in four dif- 

 ferent localities, — Summerfield, Makanda, Albion, and Browns, — 

 and of many town lots at the first and last of these places. Al- 

 thou gh these localities inspected formed but a small part of the 

 n umber treated, they constitute a larger and more varied experi- 

 ment with this wash than has hitherto been attempted anywhere 



