66 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



come into bearing. It will certainly take five or six }ears 

 longer for them to reach a bearing age in sod, or at any rate 

 it will take some little time longer, but it costs money to culti- 

 vate this land, and especially if you are going to cultivate it 

 as it should be done. Perhaps some way may be suggested 

 yet by which we can get our trees into bearing sooner than 

 can now be done by following the sod method. 



One of the complaints that we hear of is. wdth regard to 

 the early dropping of the fruit from unsprayed trees. As a 

 matter of fact I have never heard that complaint about trees 

 that have been sprayed. The reason is not difficult to find. 

 The life and vigor of the tree, and of course of the fruit as 

 well, depends \ery largely on the foliage. If the leaves begin 

 to turn yellow and drop early in the season, you may be sure 

 that the fruit wall soon follow, if it has not already dropped, 

 while in orchards where the leaves cling tenaciously to the 

 twigs the apples will be hard to pick until late in October. 



In picking our King apples we find it difficult to get them 

 off the tree until the first of October, while all the King 

 apples in the neighborhood have either dropped oft' the trees 

 or have been picked several weeks, and this, beyond doubt, 

 is the difference between spraying and not spraving. I 

 believe it is simply because those trees are thoroughly 

 sprayed, and the apples are protected from insects, are pro- 

 tected from ravages of fungous growths, so that the substance 

 of the stems and the twigs remain strong and healthy, thus 

 enabling the fruit to stay on the tree until it has reached its 

 natural period of life. I know, in a good many cases that I 

 have observed, where there was not much attention paid to 

 early spraying, that the fruit has begun to drop, in some cases, 

 probably six weeks before it ought to have done. Before we 

 began to spray our trees thoroughl}' it was almost imposible 

 for me to pick a barrel of choice Northern Spy apples. I do 

 not think a man could go in and get a dozen samples of really 

 perfect Northern Spy apples. Since we have practiced 

 spraying so thoroughly and commenced to apply the Bor- 

 deaux Mixture and Paris green thoroughly to those Northern 

 Spy trees, I do not believe we have had -five per cent, of those 

 apples aft'ected by the codling moth. I do not say this in any 



