SPRAYING. 



WOULD strongly advise anyone 

 who intends to spray his fruit trees 

 to invest in a good spraying out- 

 fit. A poor apparatus will dis- 

 courage most people, and I believe 

 many are making a very imperfect job 

 of it, or are giving up in disgust, because 

 they have not a proper outfit for the 

 purpose. The working parts of the 

 pump should be of brass. Never use a 

 pump with leather valves, or that takes 

 the liquid through the plunger, or that 

 requires packing every day to keep it 

 from leaking around the plunger. I 

 have such a pump, and I have lost more 

 time fooling and fixing with it than 

 would buy a good one. It has been 

 twice at the blacksmith's and twice at 

 the local pumpmakers, besides the time 

 lost tinkering at it myself. You may 

 pack the measly thing, and screw it 

 down till you can hardly move the 

 plunger, and before you spray half a 

 row of trees it will be leaking as bad as 

 ever. I will try to squeeze through this 

 season with it, and then the scrap iron 

 Jew will get it. 



No one should attempt to spray with- 

 out a bamboo extension rod. It is one 

 of the best things in a good outfit. It 

 makes it so easy to reach all over the 

 trees. The collar on the top end pre- 

 vents the liquid from dripping, and 

 your hands need not be wet at all, and 

 you can do rapid work with it. To 

 sum up, get a pump with cylinder and 

 valves of brass ; one that don't require 

 frequent packing to keep it from leak- 

 ing. The pump should sit well down 

 into the barrel, at least the cylinder 

 should, and not be placed away upon 

 the end of it. The hose connections 

 and fittings should stand a pressure of 

 75 lbs. to the square inch without leak- 



ing. And one most important point is, 

 that it should do rapid and efifeclive 

 work, and at the same time be easy to 

 operate. With such an outfit, includ- 

 ing the extension rod, and if with two 

 nozzles, good effective and rapid work 

 can be done, and with an ease that 

 makes spraying a pleasure, everything 

 in the shape of fruit bearing trees or 

 canes or vines should be sprayed with 

 the Bordeaux mixture. 



And while on this subject of spray- 

 ing, I might say that a peculiar blight 

 has struck the apple orchards this year, 

 turning the leaves black, causing the 

 newly set fruit to drop, and in many 

 cases the trees lost nearly all their 

 foliage. Winter apples will be very 

 scarce this year. Duchess and Alexan- 

 der and trees of the Duchess type were 

 not affected at all. My orchard was 

 not sprayed last year, but was sprayed 

 this year. And what I would like to 

 know from Mr. Orr is this, if this blight 

 was prevalent through the country (and 

 judging by newspaper reports it was), 

 how did those trees that were officially 

 sprayed last year (treated six times) 

 stand the blight? Is the foliage all 

 right on them ? Have they held their 

 fruit, and how do they compare with 

 others not treated at all ? Now, Mr. 

 Orr, examine those trees and let us hear 

 from you. If you can show that trees 

 thoroughly treated last year were not 

 affected by this blight, either in foliage 

 or fruit, then you will score one of the 

 strongest points possible in favor of 

 spraying. I believe that in future those 

 who want to make a success of fruit 

 growing, will have to spray everything 

 they grow. 



Ci. C. CvsroN. 



Craighurst. 



Zll 



