SPRAYING OF PEACH TREES FOR THE PROTEC- 

 TION OF THE BUDS AND FOR CURLED LEAF. 



Fig. 1502. — Showing difference in time of 

 blossoming of whitened and unwhitened 

 buds. (After Whitten). 



peach. 



ROBABLY no other fruit grown 

 in Ontario so often disappoints 

 the well grounded expectations 

 of the orchardist, as does the 

 The location may be favorable 

 and the soil well adapted and perfectly 

 drained ; the wood may be well ripened 

 and go into winter with abundant prom- 

 ise of a bountiful crop for the next sea- 

 son ; but when the enterprising grower, 

 endeavoring to ascertain the prospects 

 for a crop, goes to the trees in January, 

 February or March he often finds, on 

 cutting open the buds, that the heart is 

 black and dead. Not infrequently all 

 the buds are affected in this way and 

 the crop is a total failure. Sometimes 

 there is vitality enough in the buds to 

 blossom but not to set the fruit, thus 

 cruelly disappointing the hopeful grow- 

 er. This is due to the freezing of the 

 buds after they have been stimulated 

 into growth by a few bright warm days. 

 Every peach grower knows that when in 

 good condition peach buds will stand a 

 temperature considerably below zero ; 

 while buds which have been exposed to 

 warm weather will be killed by a much 



higher temperature. Many experiments 

 have been made to overcome this diffi- 

 culty but have been abandoned as in- 

 effectual or too expensive for commer- 

 cial orchards. Mulching the ground 

 under the trees, after it was frozen, so as 

 to keep the roots dormant was tried and 

 abandoned, when it was known that the 

 buds would swell and even grow under 

 certain conditions, while the roots were 

 frozen and dormant. 



The building of sheds, baling and 

 laying down of the trees were all suc- 

 cessful but of no use to the grower from 

 a commercial point of view. 



The temperature seldom rises high 

 enough in the shade, during the winter, 

 to stimulate the growth of the buds. 

 The problem thus was, how effectively 

 and cheaply could the buds be protect- 

 ed from the direct rays of the sun. 



With this problem yet unsolved, we 

 heard that a series of experiments were 

 being conducted at the Agricultural Ex- 

 perimental Station at Columbia, Mis- 

 souri, in which the trees were whitened 

 with a lime wash. 



The theory was that whitening the 

 trees would prevent them absorbing heat 

 on bright sunny days and that they 

 would remain dormant during the win- 

 ter and bldssom later, thus also being 

 less exposed to frosts in the early 

 spring. 



A test was made to ascertain the 

 amount of heat absorbed by different 

 colored objects of the same texture. 



It was found that on dull days, or 

 when shaded, no difference existed, but 

 when exposed to the sunlight a marked 

 difference appeared. Frequently a dif- 

 ference of 10 deg. or 15 deg. was indi- 

 cated, and when the sun was very bright 



