STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65 



be destroyed by the orchardist. Fortunately, such are usually 

 migratory in their habits, and have a large number of parasites 

 that prey on them, and only do serious damage in occasional 

 years. It is pretty thoroughly demonstrated, too, that the lime 

 and sulphur washes will destroy a large portion of the eggs 

 if the application is made early in the season. There is always 

 a vulnerable time in the life of all these pests when they can 

 be most easily combated, hence the importance, as I have sug- 

 gested, of timely spraying. The fungus troubles are in a class 

 by themselves, and only as the various arsenical poisons have 

 fungicidal properties will they have any effect at all in' holding 

 these diseases in check. It must be remembered, too, that they 

 can be prevented, seldom if ever cured. Let us take specific 

 oases. I will say nothing about the San Jose scale, or the Blis- 

 ter mite, which is causing us such expense in our New York 

 orchards, but confine myself to the codling moth and contem- 

 porary insects, with the apple scab. 



The codling moth lays her egg when the weather is warm 

 enough to start the buds, usually about the time the petals 

 have fallen from the blossoms, when the embryo fruit stands 

 upright with the calyx leaves open. This is a convenient de- 

 pository for her egg. If at this time the poison is put on, so 

 as to fill these little cups, even though the leaves may close, 

 the poison is secreted where the worm hatching out will get 

 his first meal well seasoned with arsenic and goes to that bourne 

 from which no insect ever returns. The apple scab fungus 

 winters over in the dead leaf, and when the weather is moist 

 and warm, which is usually about the same time as the blos- 

 soms f^ll, these spores shoot out into the air and attach them- 

 selves to the foliage and twigs, and if wet weather prevails, 

 multiply at an enormous rate, living on the tissues of the leaves 

 and later spreading to the fruit, marring its beauty and making 

 it illshapen. If at the same time we are applying the poison 

 for the codling moth, as well as the tent caterpillar, and some- 

 times canker worm, that are active at this period, we add to it 

 a fungicide, this one spraying done just at the right time and 

 done thoroughly, will give, in most years, clean fruit. 



Without question the best poison to use is arsenate of lead. 

 This is superior to Paris green, first because it will not injure 

 the foliage, second, because it is adhesive, and third, united 



