AGRICULTURE. 



ORCHARD SPRAYING. 



Throughout the southern portion of- Ne- 

 braska the most pressing work at this time 

 with the orchardists is spraying to guard 

 against our insect enemies. While the dry 

 weather which we are having is unfavor- 

 able for the wheat it is quite advantageous 

 to the orchardist; it allows him to select 

 suitable time for spraying and to do this 

 needed work at just the very best time to 

 accomplish the desired purpose. In pre- 

 ceding springs we have oftentimes done a 

 good deal of laborious work in spraying, 

 and then had much of that which we 

 hoped to accomplish destroyed by heavy 

 showers or long continued rains; the fact 

 that after years of comparative failure our 

 orchards are now promising bountiful crops 

 should impel to renewed and intelligent 

 efforts to make the most of the crop of 

 fruit already set in our orchards. 



Since 1881 the apple orchards have no^ 

 set so much fruit as this spring. Nearly 

 all of the apple blossoms were evidently 

 properly pollinated and the trees at the 

 present time have set a great deal more 

 fruit than they can carry. The properly 

 balanced farm seems to be likely to gain as 

 much on their fruit orchards as they lose 

 by the grain crop being below the average. 

 Now that our apple orchards are so full of 

 promise it is possible that your readers 

 may be interested in some of the particu- 

 lar details connected with the active work 

 of spraying. 



In southern Nebraska the codling moth 

 rarely commences to fly and deposit eggs 

 before the middle of May, and from that 

 time until the first of June or later it is 

 active in getting in its work. We spray at 

 this time, not because the coiling moth is 

 at work, but because the most promising 

 way to lessen the work of the first brood 

 is to lodge poison in the calyx of the apple 

 before the lobes of the calyx close s 



tightly as to render lodgement of the poi^ 

 son unlikely. 



Professor Card in his work demonstrated 

 that 60 per cent of the lame of the first 

 brood entering the apple seek entrance 

 through the calyx, doubtless because it 

 offers the likeliest shelter for the young 

 larvae seeking refuge from the birds. 

 Should spraying be delayed until after the 

 calyx is very tightly closed we have then 

 lost our best opportunity to intercept the 

 larvae of the first brood. If we can les- 

 sen the number of the first brood, we of 

 course very greatly curtail the work of the 

 second brood. The large number of trees 

 we have to spray and the necessity of 

 doing the work in a very few days makes 

 it advantageous to use a horse-power pump. 

 The power is applied by sprocket gearing 

 from the hind wheel of an ordinary farm 

 wagon. On this running gear is placed a 

 timber frame strong enough to support a 

 200-gallon tank. We find this pump capa- 

 ble of applying eight tanks full or 1,600 

 gallons daily. Two hundred gallons are 

 applied in fine misty spray in 45 minutes. 

 Something depends on the water supply 

 and the distance of the orchard from the 

 water tank. If the pump could be sup- 

 plied by another team hauling water it 

 could apply from 2,400 to 3,000 gallons of 

 the solution in a day. With our trees in 

 age from 10 to 25 years we usually apply 

 an average of two gallons to the tree, cov- 

 ering without the help of a water-hauling 

 wagon about 800 trees of the larger sizes 

 per day; this with a driver and one man 

 to direct the spray from four seneca noz- 

 zles. We have been using a horse-power 

 pump some twelve to fourteen years, using 

 hand pump only on very rough ground and 

 where it was difficult to run a horse-power 

 pump. The objection urged against the 

 use of the horse-power pump is that the 

 pump passing the tree at the speed of a 



