CHAPTER III 



THE NEW SCIENCE OF FRUIT-SPRAYING 



THE modern washing and spraying of fruit trees has 

 revolutionized fruit culture. 



It is not a sufficient answer to this to point out that 

 insects and fungoid enemies of fruit trees appear to 

 multiply in greater ratio than preventive and exter- 

 minative methods. It is true that we have no such 

 multifarious records of enemies in the past as assail our 

 trees to-day. It may be quite correct that there never 

 was a time when the fruit-grower was so harassed as he 

 is at the present, with science in full activity on his 

 behalf. Would any informed person deny the advance 

 in medicine and surgery because human diseases seem 

 to be more numerous than they were ? 



Humanity lives faster and tends to become more 

 highly sensitized every year. It is the same with plants. 

 They are more intensively cultivated, more highly bred, 

 more closely propagated, more heavily cropped than 

 they used to be. A fruit-grower is not satisfied with 

 getting a yield every two or three years ; he wants a 

 crop every season. With the extension of fruit-planting 

 trees are put on to soil and sites that are not naturally 

 suited to them. Stocks are used for supporting the 

 plant instead of its own roots. These and other things 

 create an artificial condition, and it would not be sur- 

 prising if the result was an outburst of diseases, But it 



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