November, igii 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTUEIST 



255 



i 



Nova Scotia this Year will probibly have a Million Barrel Apple Crop, mostly High Grade 



The interior of a Nova Scotia packing house at Middleton is here shown. 



dead wood only, hence its true nature 

 has not at once' been recognized. The 

 fructification appe"rs as more or less oe- 

 pressed or horizontal brackets of a aull 

 crimson color. Remove at once all trees 

 that are wholly involved — do not allow 

 the stump to remain in the ground. It 

 is generally on the stump, in, or lying 

 on the ground where the fructification 

 of the fungus is produced. The whole 

 wood of any "Silver Leaf" tree should 

 be destroyed by fire. Take the trees 

 out any time before fall. 



In the fall the fructification appears 

 more generally. Cut away and burn any 



silver leaved branches, and watch the 

 tree ; if after cutting away a branch 

 "Silver Leaf" re-appears in others, 

 throw the tree out. When removing a 

 tree the roots should lae dug out also,- 

 then fill in the hole with stone lime mixed 

 with soil and allow three months before 

 planting another tree in its place. Local 

 infections of single limbs may take place 

 and the inoculation experiments have, 

 shown that such a limb may recover, but 

 it is best to remove an infected limb as 

 soon as noticed. The disease is liable 

 to spread from limb to limb, so do not 

 take any risks. 



Fall vs. Spring Spraying 



L. Caesar, O.A.C., Guelph, Ont, 



OUR eastern fruit growers sometimes 

 ask why fall spraying of apple or- 

 chards, which is being largely 

 practiced, I believe in British Col- 

 umbia and the western states and 

 to a small extent in some of the 

 eastern states, has neither been recom- 

 mended nor practised in Ontario. it 

 is because we have found in Ontario 

 that our present method of spraying, if 

 thoroughly done, gives us almost perfect 

 control both of insect pests and of dis- 

 eases. Therefore it is not necessary for 

 fruitgrowers to make an extra applica- 

 tion in the autumn after the leaves are 

 all or nearly all off. To do so would 

 mean a good deal of inconvenience, and 

 would greatly increase the cost and labor 

 of spraying, thereby lowering the profits 

 of apple growing and discouraging the 

 growers. Our aim is to secure the best 

 results in the easiest, most practical and 

 economical way. 



If the fall application could take the 



place of our first spring application just 



before the buds burst, any person who 



found it more convenient to spray in the 



jfall than in the spring might do so. But 



Uve cannot see how it is possible to do 



this, because the application is not made 

 until the leaves have nearly all fallen, 

 and by this time it is usually so cold that 

 all growth, both of the trees and of the 

 diseases that attack them has ceased ; 

 n;iture is, so to speak, dormant, or near- 

 ly so, and remains this way until the 

 warm days of spring renew activity. 



Fall spraying cannot destroy all the 

 spores of disease, for many of them are 

 enclosed in little protected pustules on 

 the bark or leaves or fruit, and these 

 often do not open until spring ; more- 

 over, in the spring the wind will bring 

 spores for long distances, and these will 

 lodge on our trees. By this time all the 

 fall spray will have been washed off the 

 trees, hence the early spring application 

 will be just as necessary as ever to keep 

 off our Ontario diseases. This is espec- 

 ially true of Black Rot Canker, which 

 spreads in spring to a very large extent. 

 To ward it off it is very important that 

 before growth begins in the spring the 

 bark of the trunk and main branches be 

 thoroughly covered with lime-sulphur so 

 that any wounds or winter injured areas 

 may not afford lodging places where this 

 fungus can germinate and establish it- 

 self. 



So far as Apple Scab is concerned, 

 neither the fall nor the early spring ap- 

 plication seem necessary for control, 

 though they might help slightly. The 

 important sprays for it are (first) the 

 one just before the blossoms open, and 

 (second) just after the blossoms have 

 fallen, and in very moist districts or in 

 v/et or foggy weather a third one about 

 two or three weeks later. 



INSEOT CONTROL 



From the standpoint of the control of 

 insects it is probable that fall spraying 

 would give fairly good results though I 

 do not see how it would be quite so ef- 

 fective as the early spring spray Ijefore 

 the buds burst. The main insects con- 

 trolled by this spray are of course oyster- 

 shell and San Jose scales and Blister 

 Mite. A numljer of other insects are 

 partially controlled by it but not entire- 

 ly. In my experience it is a very de- 

 sirable matter in the control of scale in- 

 sects that the spray should remain on 

 the tree as long as possible in the spring 

 so that it will be there when the young 

 insects appear. In this way, it .seems 

 to destroy a large number of these deli- 

 cate little creatures. This could not 

 take place if the application had been 

 made in autumn as it would be washed 

 off. Some claim that fall spraying is 

 more effective than spring spraying 

 against scale insects, but ihey have not 

 been able so far as I know to demon- 

 strate this, and the very opposite .seems 

 to be the case. We should remember, 

 too, that winter iself destroys over fifty 

 per cent, of most of our hibernating in- 

 sect enemies, so that they are weaken- 

 ed greatly by the time the spring appli- 

 cation is made. 



WESTERN CONDITIONS 



Why then is fall spraying practised 

 and advocated so strongly in the Pacific 

 States and British Columbia? It is, so 

 far as I can discover, chiefly to keep 

 under control a very troublesome fun- 

 gous disease known as Apple Anthracnose 



