No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 43 



Mr. Drew. No. I should not spraj in freezing weather, 

 but it is an excellent time now to spray to kill scale, provided 

 you can have at least six or eight hours without freezing. 



Mr. H. A. Turner. If you had part of an orchard bearing 

 the Ben Davis apple would you advise keeping the trees along, 

 or grafting them ? 



Mr. Drew. That is a matter for an individual to decide 

 for himself. The Ben Davis, from the practical point of view, 

 possibl}' has a certain function. It will keep better than any 

 other apple, and may be taken out of storage as late as July 

 for culinary use, when you can't get any other apples. I 

 shouldn't recommend anybody's planting the Ben Davis in 

 New England, as they grow apples enough of poor quality in 

 the western States without our doing it here. 



Question. Do you spray a limb without any blossoms just 

 as thoroughly as those with blossoms ? 



Mr. Drew. I should take the precaution of treating it just 

 the same, even if the tree did not show any indication of bear- 

 ing fruit, just as I would thoroughly fertilize the tree, or a 

 whole orchard, that wasn't going to bear that year. I should 

 not fertilize it just the same, but I should fertilize it. 



Mr. Reed. How do joii fertilize apples, peaches and pears 

 in both young and bearing orchards ? 



Mr. Drew. I should fertilize in connection with cultiva- 

 tion, so the trees would make, say from eight to ten inches' 

 groAvth a year, and produce good colored, sound fruit that 

 would stand up. There is nothing nicer than hard wood ashes 

 to give these results. Manure is all right in giving growth, 

 but in a bearing orchard it should be used with caution. 

 Among chemical elements T should depend on nitrate of soda, 

 but would use it only in small amounts, because it will pro- 

 duce great foliage, but fruit that will not stand up in trans- 

 portation. For potash, I should use high-grade sidphate of 

 potash as an annual dressing, at the rate of 100 to 250 pounds 

 to an acre. For phosphoric acid, I generally plan on giving 

 my orchards an annual dressing of somewhere from 400 to 

 GOO pounds per acre, and a lot of our best growers of peaches 

 and apples in Connecticut are using it as heavy as 1,000 

 pounds per acre. 



