11 



uniformly successful with dusting that its substitution for spray- 

 ing will undoubtedly take place there as fast as the growers 

 can change machinery. 



With the cost of spray materials and machinery almost uni- 

 formly high, it is significant that dusting materials promise to 

 be generally cheaper this next season than they were last and 

 the demand for dusting machinery threatens to exceed the pos- 

 sible supply. 



Dusting has so many promising and profitable features, 

 especially as a saver of valuable time and labor, that its general 

 adoption cannot long be delayed. The principles upon which 

 it is based are sound; there is no virtue, per se, in the appli- 

 cation of fungicides in water if the same materials can be 

 applied dry. Professor Sanders of Nova Scotia has developed 

 a new copper-lime dust which gives every promise of efficiency 

 equal to that of the same materials in the form of liquid 

 Bordeaux, and Dr. Brittain of the same province is at work on 

 a nicotine contact dust which in preliminary experiments has 

 given great promise as a killer of the sucking insects. Dry 

 sulfur and arsenate of lead have already proved quite as ef- 

 fective when applied dry as when used in the liquid form. 



With the standard fungicides and insecticides all thus avail- 

 able in dr}' form, there remains only to perfect the methods 

 for their application in order to eliminate entirely the water 

 which now so seriously interferes with rapid and timely opera- 

 tion in the control of our orchard pests and diseases. 



The County Spray Service. 



Impressed with the paramount importance of timely appli- 

 cation in the control of apple scab and other fruit diseases in 

 our New York orchards, we undertook about three years ago 

 the experiment of organizing and directing a so-called spray 

 service in certain of our best fruit counties. Upon request of 

 the Farm Bureau organization a man with good fundamental 

 training in plant pathology and entomology is placed in the 

 county as special field assistant, with headquarters at the Farm 

 Bureau office. The county provides and maintains a Ford for 

 his use. He is assigned to the county about April 1 and re- 



