76 N. H. AGR. EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 143 



rectness of the results secured in the "West, and feeling that the 

 same methods might be equally efficient in New England, we 

 arranged to contrast two plots given only the first spray, one 

 in the ordinary manner with a fine mist, and the other with as 

 high a pressure as possible, thoroughly drenching the tree with 

 a coarse spray from Bordeaux nozzles and driving it into the 

 calyces. Such comparisons were made in two orchards in 1907 

 and in three orchards in 1908. In the two in 1907 and one in 

 1908 the drenching spray was given with a barrel pump which 

 could not be kept at over 80 to 100 pounds pressure. But on 

 two of the 1908 plots the drenching was done with a gas sprayer 

 giving 110 to 120 pounds pressure, with no material difference 

 in the results. It is entirely evident from the large amount of 

 data from these five plots that in New England on the Baldwins 

 the drenching spray has no particular advantage over the mist 

 spray, except as it may deposit more material on the foliage 

 and apple. The reason for this is readily found by a little^study 

 of the Baldwin apple. In the West many varieties of apples 

 have the calyx lobes still open two weeks after blossoming, and 

 the stamen bars shrivel sufficiently to allow the passage of spray 

 between them to the lower calyx cavity. There can be no disput- 

 ing the desirability of spraying so as to deposit a spray in the 

 lower calyx cavity, where it is so possible, but a comparison of 

 the structure of the Baldwin apple as it grows in New Hampshire 

 shows it to be entirely impossible, as the experiments cited cor- 

 roborate. As mentioned above, the sepals usually close about 

 one week or at most ten days after the blossoms drop. At this 

 time the stamens are still so swollen that no spray can be forced 

 between them, no matter how high the power or coarse the spray. 

 If apples be examined a week or ten days after the sepals have 

 entirely closed, the stamens will still be found turgid, as we have 

 found by the examination of numerous specimens the present 

 year. Such being the case, the question of a drenching, driving 

 spray as compared with a mist spray, becomes one of climate and 

 varieties, and which method will be most efficacious in any region 

 cannot be dogmatically asserted until the method of growth of 

 the apples in that region has been studied. There can l)e no 

 question, however, that thorough spraying must be insisted upon. 

 The old rule, spray until the tree commences to drip and then 



