204 THE SPRAYING CAMPAIGN 



1. Have a Definite Object in Yieie. — Know what you are 

 spraying for. Know what your pests look like, how they work 

 and what will kill them. Perhaps it may seem hardly worth 

 while to mention this, but a very large proportion of the men 

 who spray do not have this clear notion of why they do it. How 

 often a man is heard to say that the aphis is less abundant than 

 it was last year and he thinks it is because he sprayed so 

 thorouglily with arsenate of lead. As a matter of fact, arsenate 

 of lead does not have the slightest effect in the world on them. 

 Or he may say that he must do something this year for the big 

 ants which attacked his apple trees the year previous when in 

 reality the ants were not hurting his trees in the least, but were 

 after the houeydew given off by tlie aphis. Or that he is con- 

 sidering the use of Bordeaux mixture this season for canker 

 worms, when he should know that Bordeaux is regarded merely 

 as a tonic by any canker worm in good health. Examples like 

 these might be multiplied indefinitely and that, too, among good, 

 intelligent orchard men. So that it seems quite reasonable to 

 urge the importance of having a clear idea of what to do. 



2. Spray in Time. — Many of our orchard pests are not 

 affected in the least by any spraying which is not done promptly. 

 The codling moth and the bud moth are good examples of this 

 class. No amount of spraying after they once gain entrance to 

 the apple or the bud, respectively, will have any effect on them. 

 With a great many other pests spraying is of relatively little 

 value if done late, and with only a few is there any objection to 

 doing it considerably beforehand. 



3. Spray Thoroughly. — This has already been spoken of more 

 than once, but it will bear repeating, as no other one point is of 

 more importance. A common way of regarding spraying is to 

 consider that it is like a medicine ; if the tree gets a certain quan- 

 tity of it, it will be cured of its diseases. But the proper way to 

 regard it is to think of it as we would of painting a barn. Paint- 

 ing one side of a barn has no effect in preserving the other side. 

 Neither does spraying one side of an apple affect the other side. 

 The ease is even stronger than this, because such pests as the 

 San Jose scale may migrate to the parts that were sprayed if 



