CHAPTER IX 

 THE SPRAYING OF FRUIT-PLANTATIONS 



IN 1886, the present author 'wrote in a book that 

 "A remedy proposed of late is to syringe the trees with 

 a mixture of paris green and water, very early in the 

 season, while the young apples stand erect. The poison 

 lodges in the 'blossom end' and destroys the first brood 

 of worms. Later, when the apples turn downward, the 

 poison is washed out by the rains. This remedy was 

 proposed, and its entire success demonstrated, by Prof. 

 A. J. Cook, of the Michigan Agricultural College. A 

 tablespoonful of poison to a gallon of water is sufficient." 



This statement represented nearly the sum of knowl- 

 edge respecting the spraying of orchards at that time. 

 Ten years later, the writer had part in putting before 

 the public Lodeman's "The Spraying of Plants," which 

 made a closely printed book of some four hundred pages. 

 Today, the spraying of fruit-plantations is a stand- 

 ard practice, conducted in a large way with much skill, 

 and involving the use of highly specialized equipment. 

 These contrasts show how rapid has been the develop- 

 ment of the spraying of plants to combat insects and 

 diseases. Sometimes its importance may have been magni- 

 fied out of proportion to other essential operations of fruit- 

 growing. Spraying has been hailed as a positive means of 

 making orchards fruitful. In practice, however, it makes 

 orchards fruitful only when the cause of unfruitfulness is 

 incursions of insects and fungi. It will not correct the 



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