— SI- 

 SPRAYING ITEMS 





SPRAYING AND SUCCESS IN FRUIT GROWING— IN THE 



FARM ORCHARD 



Rev. Father Leopold, La Trappe, P. Q. 



Our forefathers knew nothing about fighting orchard fungous and insect 

 pests. In fact a great many of the orchard pests of to-day were not known to 

 exist in this country fifty years ago. Now and then one hears men saying to 

 you, when you try to convince them of the necessity of spraying: Times have 

 changed; why, when I was a boy we did not have wormy or scabby fruit — there 

 was no trouble with the caterpillars, and spraying was an unheard-of thing. Yes, 

 times have changed, and the orchardist of to-day, who tries to grow fruit with- 

 out following modern methods, is as sure of failure as he is of death, only the 

 former may come much sooner than the latter. 



Many farmers realize that it would pay them to spray, but have for their 

 excuse the lack of time, or they say it comes at a time when other farm work is 

 pressing. Now I am only going to deal here to-day with the spraying of the farm 

 orchard, for a man who does orcharding on a commercial basis knows only too 

 well that spraying for him means success or failure. 



From one-fourth to one-half an acre in orchard, or from 15 to 20 or 25, 50 

 trees for the home orchard is what we generally mett around here in the Province 

 of Quebec. Estimated from a practical demonstration made by Prof. R. S. Her- 

 rick, of the Iowa Agricultural College, it would take about five hours to spray 

 fifty trees and less that time for 25 trees. Let us figure, however, on 50 trees. 

 Six gallons of spray-mixture were used on each tree. In other words, it took 

 about one day to prepare the spray material and apply it to the home orchard of 

 50 trees, averaging 30 years old. 



For four sprays, where the material was bought at wholesale prices, it 

 should not cost over 34 cents per tree for the spray material, labor and interest on 

 the money invested on the spray machinery. The chances are that the four days 

 spent in spraying the home orchard, four times would never be missed in doing 

 the general farm work. Then in the fall of the year there would be a lot of fine, 

 clean fruit for the fall and for winter use, instead of a lot of small, wormy and 

 scabby fruit, or, as it happened last year to many who did not heed the waning 

 of the presence of the caterpillar masses of eggs, no fruit at all. 



The farmer who says he does not have time to properly grow and take care 

 of a home orchard, and that he can buy his fruit cheaper than he can grow it, is 

 generally the man whose family goes without using good fruit. 



Spraying is one of the three great cornerstones of success in orcharding 

 even on the small farm. It goes hand in hand with pruning and cultivation, and 

 in orchards where the fundamental principles of these three operations are car- 

 ried out, the production of good crops is sure and certain. How is it, after all the 

 progress made in the last few years, that we find here in the Province of Quebec 

 that the average crop of all the apple trees in the whole province does not come 

 higher than i 1-3 bushels? Now this is a very, very low figure as an average. 

 How is it also that the bearing apple trees in the Province have decreased to 12 p.c. 

 since 1901, as we may get proofs from the 191 1 census? The only reason I see is, 



