STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43; 



milk in large quantities clay after day and year after year, unless we 

 gave her food and care to that end. No more can we expect our 

 fruit trees to yield us large crops of fine fruit year after year unless 

 we ^ive it a good honest measure, all that it can handle of its food 

 wherewith to manufacture this much desired product in full measure. 



Our insect enemies are very numerous and are multiplying rapidly. 

 They are at work from the base of the trunk to the topmost twig, 

 and we must fight them in season and out of season. The borer is 

 one of the first enemies to which we are obliged to turn our atten- 

 tion ; it will attack our trees just as soon as they are set and unless 

 they are looked after and removed they will destroy the tree. Our 

 only remedy has been to look them over often with knife in hand 

 and take out the little fellows as soon after they are hatched as pos- 

 sible ; in that way we have reduced their ravages and the consequent 

 damages from ihem to a very great extent. The caterpillar is 

 another enemy that we must look after continually ; it is our prac- 

 tice to remove every nest as soon as it is seen, making no difference 

 what we are doing. In that way we greatly reduce the damage from 

 them but do not see that their number is greatly reduced by so 

 doing. 



The greatest problem is still before us, which is to save our fruit 

 after we have got our trees already to produce it, and we are anx^ 

 iously waiting for remedies to be discovered whereby we can protect 

 ourselves from the apple maggot and the apple scab. Spraying 

 appears to have solved the question of protecting our fruit from the 

 codling moth, which perhaps has never been an unmixed evil, often- 

 times doing the work of thinhing the fruit on overloaded trees, indis- 

 criminately it is true, still a much needed task in some cases. In 

 conclusion, we would say, that as a rule farmers are a hardworkino" 

 class and perhaps always will be, but is it not possible that if we 

 should devote more time to study, find out more in regard to the 

 best methods of protecting ourselves against our insect enemies and 

 then putting those methods into practice, we should find more leis- 

 ure to enjoy the beauties of our situation, watching the operations 

 of nature which we have in a measure assisted and directed ? 



