120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



free from anything of the kind. I understand that as yet 

 you have taken no steps in this line. I do not believe I 

 would allow a New York man or a New Jersey man or a 

 Pennsylvania man to ship anything to me unless it bore the 

 card of the inspector, and then I should want to inspect it 

 myself. To-day would be a grand day to inspect for the 

 scale. On a cloudy day you can hardly detect it with the 

 naked eye. One day last week an inspector brought in 

 several sticks and laid them on the table before me, and I 

 put on my glasses and could not detect anything that looked 

 like the scale, but under the microscope I could see it there 

 at work preparing to next year hatch its millions. 



Secretary Sessions. Do the sour cherries go to the can- 

 neries ? 



Mr. Willard. Some are sold to the canneries. You can 

 pick them every day in the week (except Sundays) for the 

 canneries, and can pick them without the stems and they 

 are much more cheaply handled. If you pick them with the 

 stems, they have to pick the stems off. 



The canning factory should go hand in hand with fruit 

 growing. A large canning factory consumes not only fruit, 

 but pumpkins, squashes and almost everything else. I 

 know of four canning industries in the State of New York 

 that consume annually thirty thousand bushels of Bart- 

 lett pears. They pay usually about a dollar to a dollar and 

 a quarter a bushel. 



If I were planting a plum orchard to-day, I should plant 

 a certain number of rows of plums, and I would put in a 

 row of cherries here and a row there. It would not be for 

 the fertilization of the blossoms so much as to protect them 

 from the curculio. We bug our plums, but the cherry trees 

 are never affected. 



Question. Are you troubled with black-knot ? 



Mr. Willard. You have no business to have it in your 

 orchard, and no other man has. You have no right to prop- 

 agate a nuisance. 



Question. How can you help it? 



Mr. Willard. Cut it off. I have never seen the Japan 

 plum affected with the black-knot. 



Question. How do you " bug " your plums ? 



