i82 The Connecticut Pomological Society 



RECENT OBSERVATIONS IN THE APPLE ORCHARD 



By I'ROF. A. G. GULLEY. Connecticut Agricultural ColleEe 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



This chart that you see here has very little to do with what 

 I am going to talk about. It is sort of a side issue. I am going 

 to talk about some of the things we have observed during the 

 past year. I am going to talk about a few lessons that we have 

 learned from our apple orchards during the past year, and make 

 a little efJort to draw out your ideas as well as give some of my 

 own. Those of you who were over at Middletown know that 

 I spoke there about our failure in spraying. We had at the 

 college this last year a total failure in killing some of these apple 

 pests. The materials that we had worked all right except on 

 that. Just why, I have not been able to determine myself, and 

 I have nothing to say about it except that I suppose the work 

 was done the same as usual. The spraying was done the same 

 as it was on other trees, where it worked all right, and yet we 

 had far more wormy apples than we have had at any time within 

 the last four years. I am not able to account for it except to 

 say that the season undoubtedly gave us a later edition of the 

 codling moth. Why we should have it, and nobody else, I do 

 not know. I know that the reports show that the spraying for 

 insects was pretty generally good, but it was not so with us, and 

 the only reason I can give for it is that we had a later edition of 

 that insect. I know from this fact that we found any quantity 

 of apples with that worm. At the time of thinning we were 

 very careful to remove everything that showed it. A great 

 many apples showed the effects of it only in the eye of the apple. 

 Now, then, where does that leave us ? It leaves us with this 

 fact : that spraying would not have helped us if our theory is 

 true. The eye of the apple had closed. The egg of the insect 

 was laid there undoubtedly, and the worm crawled in so that 

 spraying would not help us. So, instead of having a standard 

 right along, we learn that we must expect a bad year in this 

 respect once in a while. In scabbing our spraying was success- 

 ful. I speak of that because in one or two cases where we did 

 not work the top properly we had it. All my lower fruit was all 



