30 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



About the same time the problem of fruit storage came up for 

 investigation. Fruit storage is a most important problem, especially 

 for the apple growers in Illinois, because of its direct bearing on the 

 profit of their business. Storage facilities in Chicago were perhaps 

 three hundred thousand barrels, and in the state six hundred thousand 

 barrels; yet this was entirely inadequate to meet the need. In order 

 to investigate this problem, a storage house was built at Neoga, and 

 storage cellars at Olney, Champaign, and Savoy. 



Experiments in spraying for the control of apple blotch, con- 

 ducted in 1913, showed that from twenty-five to fifty per cent of the 

 crop could be saved from apple blotch in severely infested orchards; 

 experiments in 1916 showed that ninety per cent of the fruit might 

 be saved from this disease; and further experiments in 1917 and 

 1918 have confirmed the above results. Investigations have further 

 shown that spraying with the proper materials at the proper time will 

 save from fifteen to twenty-five per cent of fruit from codling moth ; 

 and it has also been shown that from twenty-five to fifty per cent can 

 be saved from apple scab. The Illinois Station has experimented 

 and published more extensively on spraying for the control of apple 

 pests than has any other experiment station. 



The most significant problem in orcharding is production: in- 

 creased planting and increased yield. Experiments inaugurated in a 

 large commercial orchard at Neoga in 1913, showed as a result of five 

 years' work that the addition of nitrogen to the soil in the form of 

 sodium nitrate, stable manure, and leguminous green manures, had 

 increased the yield of apples by twenty-seven barrels per annum. 

 Practically all bearing orchards in Illinois need fertilizing. From 

 the fertilization of peaches even more significant results have been 

 obtained on the farm at Olney. Altho the peach orchard was only 

 four years old (planted in 1916), and bore its first crop in 1920, the 

 best fertilized plot yielded at the rate of 125 bushels per acre more 

 than the poorest unfertilized plot. This same plot yielded 204 

 bushels more per acre than another plot (not the poorest) which had 

 been cultivated and fertilized according to the methods in vogue in the 

 cultivation of this fruit. Ten acres of land and twelve hundred trees 

 were used in this experiment. Increasing the yields of the suitably 

 located peach orchards of Illinois by such increases as were obtained 

 in the experiments above described would mean an additional profit 

 of $700,000 to $1,500,000 to the industry, in all favorable seasons. 



In a bulletin of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (No. 767) 

 by the Fruit Crop Specialist, Bureau of Crop Estimates, we find the 



