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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



purpose of destroying the adult curculios 

 which hibernate and gnaw into the 

 young growth of the trees, and even 

 into the hard young fruit before laying 

 their eggs. The eggs are pushed under 

 the skin so that the larvae are not ordi- 

 narily affected by the poisoning. 



In the case of most leaf-feeding insects 

 one should spray on the first indication 

 of their presence. 



Treating the subject of spraying from 

 a purely hygienic stand-point, several 

 instances are cited where careful ex- 

 periments have been made to ascertain 

 what possible deleterious effects could 

 arise from the consumption of fruit to 

 which had been applied the arsenites so 

 deadly to the codling-moth and other 

 parasites. Regarding the eating of 

 apples that were so treated, the follow- 

 ing reference is made : 



In case of spraying apple orchards for 

 the codling-moth, there is scarcely a 

 possibility of injury to the consumer of 

 the fruit. A mathematical computation 

 will quickly show that where the poison 

 is used in the proportion of 1 pound to 

 200 gallons of water (the customary 

 proportion) the arsenic will be so dis- 

 tributed through the water that it will 

 be impossible for a sufficient quantity 

 to collect upon any given apple to have 

 the slightest injurious effect upon the 

 consumer. In fact, such a computation 

 will indicate beyond all peradventure 

 that it will be necessary for an individ- 

 ual to consume several barrels of apples 

 at a single meal in order to absorb a 

 fatal dose, even though this enormous 

 meal be eaten soon after the spraying, 

 and should the consumer eat the entire 

 fruit. 



As a matter of fact careful microscopic 

 examinations have been made of the 

 fruit and foliage of sprayed trees at 

 various intervals after spraying, which 

 indicate that after the water has evap- 

 orated, the poison soon entirely disap- 

 pears, either through being blown off by 

 the wind, or washed off by rains, so that 

 after 15 days hardly the minutest trace 

 can be discovered. 



In order, then, to receive a fatal dose 

 of the poison, an individual must ''con- 

 sume several harrels of apples at a single 

 meal .'" Whew ! Please excuse us from 

 such an experiment to test the poisonous 

 effects of sprayed fruit ! How foolish to 

 suppose that one or two apples could 



possibly contain a suf6cient amount of 

 the poison to produce any apparent 

 effect ! 



In the line of actual experiment as in- 

 dicating the very finely divided state of 

 the poison, and the extremely small 

 quantity which is used to each tree, 

 Prof. A. J. Cook, of the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College, has conducted some 

 striking experiments. A thick paper 

 was placed under an apple tree which 

 was thoroughly sprayed on a windy day, 

 so that the dripping was rather exces- 

 sive. After the dripping had ceased, 

 the paper (covering a space of 72 square 

 feet) was analyzed, and four-tenths of a 

 grain of arsenic was found. Another 

 tree was thoroughly sprayed, and subse- 

 quently the grass and clover beneath it 

 was carefully cut and fed to a horse 

 without the slightest sign of injury. 



The whole matter was well summed 

 up by Prof. Riley, in a recent lecture 

 before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, 

 in the following words : 



The latest sensational report of this 

 kind was the rumor, emanating from 

 London, within the last week, that 

 American apples were being rejected 

 for fear that their use was unsafe. If 

 we consider for a moment how minute 

 is the quantity of arsenic that can, un- 

 der the most favorable circumstances, 

 remain in the calyx of an apple, we shall 

 see at once how absurd this fear is ; for, 

 even if the poison that originally killed 

 the worm remained intact, one would 

 have to eat many barrels of apples at a 

 meal to get a sufficient quantity to 

 poison a human being. 



Moreover, much of the poison is 

 washed off by rain, and some of it is 

 thrown off by natural growth of the 

 apple, so that there is, as a rule, nothing 

 left of the poison in the garnered fruit. 

 Add to this the further fact that few 

 people eat apples raw without casting 

 away the calyx and stem ends, the only 

 parts where any poison could, under the 

 most favorable circumstances, remain, 

 and that these parts are always cut 

 away in cooking, and we see how utterly 

 groundless are any fears of injury, and 

 how useless any prohibitive measures 

 against American apples on this score. 



Such, then, is the result of the inves- 

 tigation as made by the expert scientists 



