STATE POMOLOGICAIv SOCIETY. 137 



grown in this country. I don't think there is any section out- 

 side of Boston that can equal it. 



The question of spraying ought to be more prominently 

 brought up here at this time, I think, and more forcibly 

 impressed on you than I can do it. But at the same time I think 

 you are alive to the ravages, to the danger from the ravages of 

 the gypsy moth and the scale and from the brown-tail moth. 

 We in Massachusetts have had a test of that and it has cost us 

 heavily. The legislature has appropriated something like $500,- 

 000 to be used this coming year for the suppression of the gypsy 

 and brown-tail moth. I hope you will never have to come to 

 that because it is certain to cost you dear in the end, even if you 

 only keep it in suppression for a while. It is one of those things 

 that is sure in the end, I think, to adjust itself. There are para- 

 sites being introduced into the country which are sure to find, 

 their level, and the parasite working on the gypsy moth and the 

 brown-tail will be sure to keep it in check. But in the mean 

 time we cannot let our orchards and our forests and our other 

 trees go, so we are expending this immense amount of money 

 to keep it in partial suppression so that it won't spread to the 

 other states. The government has taken some interest in the 

 matter and has given us an appropriation, and it is to keep that 

 pest confined in Massachusetts where it is at present that the 

 government is striving to do. But we have to keep up a large 

 appropriation in order to get the government money to carry on 

 the work. I hope you won't get the gypsy moth. The brown- 

 tail isn't so bad. I think the gypsy is not as bad as the scale in 

 a fruit orchard, and you are bound to get that more or less, 

 trees bought from nurseries, bound to get in even if you think 

 the trees haven't the scale or are fumigated before they come. 



The question of the growing of quality in apples I think ought 

 to interest us a great deal. I have here an apple grown in 

 Massachusetts, to some extent following the Granvenstein, 

 called the Bay State apple. I don't know whether it would do 

 well in Maine but it is a very pretty apple as grown in Massa- 

 chusetts. It is of about the same quality as the Gravenstein, 

 comes in a little later, just at the time before the Mcintosh is 

 ripe. It is considered one of our best table apples in Massa- 

 chusetts. I don't know as it would ever become popular in 



