192 BULLETIN NO. 62. 



In enforcing the horticultural law, since the funds are furnished 

 b)' the general public the general public as well as the fruit growers 

 should be protected and receive the benefit, and even though it may 

 appear to work some hardships on individuals such rules should 

 be enforced as to prevent the rapid spreading of this baneful pest. 

 Those individuals who fail to see that they are not serving their own 

 interests in failing to spray their commercial orchards should have 

 them sprayed by the state officials and the expenses should be 

 charged against such properties. Infested orchards in towns, 

 becoming a menace to commercial orchards in the vicinity should 

 be sprayed by, or under the supervision of, state officials and insofar 

 as the work is a benefit to the owners they should pay the expenses 

 but the balance, if there be a balance, should be paid from public 

 funds since it is a public benefit to have such spraying done. 



The writer feels confident in stating that in such towns as 

 Helena, Missoula, and Kalispell without the expenditure of 

 enormous sums, which Montana will never feel warranted in appro- 

 priating, the codling moth cannot be actually exterminated tho' it 

 may be reduced to very small numbers. When reduced to such small 

 numbers the danger of spreading to commercial orchards will be 

 reduced to a minimum. The state should pursue a vigorous warfare 

 against the pest in each center of population in order that our great 

 fruit industry, whose future benefits to the state should be measur- 

 ed not alone by the number of dollars it will return in the form 

 cf fruit but by the good name the state will acquire for being a pro- 

 ducer of large quantities of clean apples, with all the pleasing asso- 

 ciations of apple growing, may be fostered and protected. 



Montana apple growers should begin spraying for the codling 

 moth as soon as the pest first makes its appearance in the orchard. 

 In other apple growing sections growers have been obliged to go to 

 great expense and trouble, after the insects became very injurious, 

 to reduce the numbers to a point where only four or five percent 

 of apples are destroyed, and reaching this point they have been 

 greatly pleased and have continued to spray to keep the injury 

 down. It will be very unwise for a Montana grower knowing that 

 he has the moth generally scattered through his orchard to neglect 

 to spray and thus allow the pest to increase and after a few years 

 be obliged to go through an extensive operation of fighting it down 



