20 American Pomological Society 



Fertilizing the Orchard 



While nearly all agree as to the texture of the soil best suited to the 

 cherry, the mineral and available elements vary so greatly in different sec- 

 tions, that the following statements are confined to observations and exist- 

 ing conditions in Michigan. Stable manure is a commodity hard to get in 

 many sections where a large percentage of the land is planted to orchards, 

 for this reason many growers resort to green manuring to furnish the nec- 

 essary amount of nitrogen, and buy commercial fertilizers to supply the 

 potash and phosphoric acid. For the potash a few buy hard wood ashes 

 and use them at the rate of from 50 to 100 bushels per acre, but the ashes 

 are not always available and then muriate of potash is used at the rate of 

 from three to five hundred pounds per acre, with from two to four hundred 

 pounds of ground bone per acre. When it is advisable to use a complete 

 fertilizer it is used at the rate of 2-8-10. However, in the use of fertili- 

 zers a study of the soil with close observation on the growth and behavior 

 of the trees is essential to wisely apply that which is most needed. 



Insects and Diseases 



The injurious insects and fungus diseases that attack the cherry 

 are important factors to be met and dealt with ; only the more important are 

 mentioned with remedies for the same. Where it is possible the insecti- 

 cide and fungicide are combined thus making one spraying answer both 

 purposes. The more important insects are Curculio, Black Aphis, and a 

 number of the scale insects : San Jose, Aspidiotos perniciosus, and 

 European fruit scale, Aspidiotus ostreaformis, being the more important 

 of the latter. The Curculio is the Plum curculio, which attacks, stings, 

 and causes the grub in nearly all of the stone fruits, and attacks the sweet 

 cherry in preference to the sour. This insect may be checked by use of paris 

 green or any of the arsenites combined with bordeaux mixture, when spray- 

 ing for fungi. The sweet cherry ripens so soon after blossoming that the 

 applications should follow very closely. Arsenite of lime is used with 

 bordeaux mixture, giving one application just before blossoms open, one 

 just as soon as blossoms have fallen and the third a week later. Usually this 

 is all that is safe to use on account of the ripening of the fruit and all that 

 is necessary to control this insect. 



The cherry tree plant louse, Myzus cerasi, is a black shiny louse that 

 is much more troublesome some years than others, and works on the 

 new growth and tender foliage, making its appearance about the time the 

 fruit is about half grown, or beginning to ripen. It secretes a sticky sub- 

 tance upon the foliage twigs and fruits, which destroys the sale of the fruit, 

 and is one of the hardest insects to control. 



It is a sucking insect and must be killed by contact insecticides. The 

 remedies recommended are kerosene emulsion with whale oil soap or tobac- 



