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Mice sometimes damage fruit trees as early as September? Control 

 measures are most needed in orchards which have a heavj/- grass cover. Too much 

 reliance must not be placed in wire guards. 



That much may be learned from roadside cuts, gravel banks, building 

 excavations, etc., about the fitness of a soil for agricultural purposes? There 

 are literally hundreds of places in Massachusetts where soil profiles have been 

 exposed to show the characteristics of our various soil typos. 



That an annual pruning plus tvra or three applications of Bordeaux Mix- 

 ture is likely to mean the difference betvreen a crop of good grapes and a few 

 poorly filled clusters of partially \vithered berries? Vj"hile harvesting the grape 

 crop ^ve have a good chance to evaluate our pruning and spraying methods. 



That an obscure fungus disease of apple trees may cause the leaves on one 

 or more branches to take on a silvery appearance? This disease is appropriately 

 known as Silver Leaf. It was observed in several Massachusetts orchards during 

 the past summer. 



A Visit to the Champlain Valley 



A recent letter from H. P. Gilraore of Vrestboro tells of a visit to the 

 Cham.plain Valley of New York. Among his comments are these: "The orchards I 

 visited had a fine crop of Mcintosh of fully as good size and better color than 

 ours here. They have had groiving conditions very similar to ours this past 

 season. It has been very dry so there is very little scab in the well cared 

 for orchards. Codling moth is a little more in evidence than in our best orchards. 

 Second brood leaf hoppers were just showing up and I saw a few infestations of 

 red mite and maggot. So their conditions are very much like ours. The main var- 

 iety is Mcintosh. That variety makes up 80 or 90% of the crop in the orchards 

 visited. In the older orchards Fameuse was used as a pollenizer but since the 

 loss of the Canadian market, the trees are being grafted over to Delicious and 

 Cortland. It may be a bit too far north for Delicious which do not look as v;ell 

 as some of ours. The Baldwins were badly frozen out in the winter of 1933-34. 

 Some Greenings are also grown. The severe freeze also seriously injured some 

 Mcintosh trees as evidenced by some black heart and dying back. V.inter injury 

 is one of their worst fears ^vith the result that nitrogen fertilizers are used 

 rather too sparingly to prevent late grovrth. The one outstanding difference on 

 first inspection is the absence of hurricane damaged trees. They were fortunate 

 to escape the hurricane of 1938. Labor costs are slightly lower than ours. I 

 had a very enjoyable visit with A. E. Burrell who gave me a lot of information 

 on orcharding in the Valley and made my trip most interesting." 



Ef fect of Slope on a Raspberry Planting 



Does the direction of slope have anj'-thing to do with success in raspberry 

 grovdng? According to Andrev: Love of Auburn it exerts a real influence. He 

 writes: "In 1935 I planted l/3 of an acre of raspberries on a northern slope. 

 On the top of the slope are woods which check southern and southwestern winds. 

 At that time I had two other beds on the other side of the hill on equally well 

 drained and v/ell fertilized soil, one an acre, the other -^ acre in area. This 

 gave me beds on direct northern and direct southern exposures for comparison. 

 The acre bed on a southern slope grew v/ell and suffered severe winter injury for 

 several years. The hurricane did a good job of v/recking it so I plowed it under 

 in 1939. I have never had any real luck with the \ acre bed, also on a southern 

 slope. Some years I get a fev; berries but most years, I take the job of growing 



