2 FRUIT TREES AND THEIR ENEMIES 



militating against the spread of fruit pests. But this 

 must not be taken to imply that spraying can be 

 dispensed with in any well-managed garden or orchard; 

 and the efficient treatment of the fruit trees often 

 involves applying a similar treatment to the neigh- 

 bouring hedgerows and forest plantations ; for these 

 act in many cases as the breeding-grounds for the 

 insects which attack the fruit trees {e.g. the winter 

 moth, lackey moth, little ermine moth, scale-insects, 



etc.). 



It is only during the last few years, however, that 

 the necessity for spraying has begun to be generally 

 recognised in Great Britain, and the eagerness dis- 

 played to make up for lost leeway is calculated to 

 lead to an indiscriminate dosing of fruit trees with 

 anything and everything which may be put on the 

 market. Unfortunately, the Board of Agriculture has 

 no experiment station where such matters can be 

 investigated, nor has it even a department for dealing 

 with horticultural subjects, so that the fruit grower 

 can look for no authoritative advice from that quarter, 

 and is left very much at the mercy of the enterprising 

 advertiser. 



Spraying, to be successful, must be done intelli- 

 gently. The grower must know what to spray for, 

 what to spray with, and when to do it. To spray a 

 tree without any definite object is like giving a man 

 physic without knowing what is the matter with him, 

 or whether anything is the matter at all. Some 

 acquaintance with the commoner diseases of trees is 

 essential ; and, for that reason, it appeared that a 

 spraying calendar, without any description of some 



