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the field. 



The difference in the cost of the mechanical phases of 

 the two systems is of minor importance, in our experience, 

 because of the substantial saving we have attained in the 

 fruit itself — maturing a very much larger proportion of 

 marketable fruit, of better quality, than we had ever been 

 able to secure with the liquid spray. And another very im 

 portant matter is the holding down or prevention of the 

 spread, of such a disease as brown rot. This disease is our 

 worst enemy — this year some of you will want to give Jack 

 Frost the first place — the rot was gaining on us year by year, 

 causing serious and growing losses in marketable fruit, and 

 making the fruit less reliable as to keeping qualities after 

 packing and sale. We feel that we started a reversal of 

 these ills by using the dust last year, and are hopeful that 

 future results will confirm this opinion. 



Perhaps you may be interested in specific results on dif- 

 ferent varieties, and the checks we had on them. "Wliito 

 fleshed early peaches are notoriously subject to brown rot. 

 The past season, particularly the early part of it, was favor- 

 able for the development of brown rot. It did not seem a 

 practicable proposition to leave rows of undusted trees as a 

 check, as the clouds of dust spread over a wider area than 

 is intended, and we had isolated trees of these varieties, that 

 furnished a better check. Greensboro with us is susceptible 

 to brown rot and very much subject to peach scab. We 

 brought through a clean crop of this variety with only one ap- 

 plication of dust. We intended to dust twice, but the trees 

 were heavily laden and we could not get through the rows 

 the second time. Carman and Hiley are also subject to rot; 

 on them our loss was negligible where we dusted, while eight 

 or ten of these trees, neither sprayed nor dusted, showed a 

 loss of all of the fruit by brown rot. The despised May- 

 flower, which really meets public approval when sold ripe 

 and in small packages is very susceptible to rot with us — as 

 much, if not more so, than Champion; it came through with 

 only a small fraction of the usual loss, and the fruit stood 



