104 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



that had scarcely a salable apple the year before and were 

 treated to a dose of crude oil in early spring. And the apples 

 were clean, too, on the whole. 



On peach and plum the results were not so good and many 

 trees were killed or badly injured and so we tried to get awa\- 

 from the vaseline and paraffine, and used kerosene instead. 

 And here, too, we were successful and unsuccessful, i.e., we 

 could always kill the insects, but not always with safety to the 

 tree. Our directions were explicit enough — apply on a dry 

 day to a dry tree in a fine, forcible spray, using only enough to 

 cover : — but not all fruit growers understand English, some 

 never read directions anyway until after they have gotten into 

 trouble and we were still away from our hunt for a safe, 

 reliable scale-killer. But there is left with us a remnant of 

 men who have learnt to use kerosene, who are satisfied with 

 the results obtained and who are not willing to abandon it. 



.\nd then came the emulsions and the emulsion sprayers 

 and the kerosene-limiod mixtures — all of them attempts to mix 

 mmeral oils with water so as to make a given quantity of oil 

 cover a greater surface. A great many men never real'y 

 understood what this lime or hmoid was really intended for, 

 and that it was really a carrier only to break up the kerosene 

 or other oil into particles that could be more widely spread 

 and so form a thinner coating. It was the oil that did the 

 work and when there was enough oil, properly used, the mix- 

 tures were successful — otherwise not : and when the mixtures 

 were imperfectly made harm was done to trees as when un- 

 diluted oil was used and the insects escaped elsewhere as when 

 sprayed with water only. Enuilsion pumps were excellent — 

 theoretically — but practically they did not come up to expecta- 

 tions. One or the other of the pumps would get out of gear, 

 or become a little clogged and the proportion of oil and water 

 would change almost in a minute from pure oil to pure water, 

 with disastrous and discouraging results. But even here good 

 results were the rule, and through it all stood out that one 

 great fact that even a very small percentage of oil would kill 

 the pernicious scale if it was brought into contact with it. 



There are only a few chemists who know very nuich about 

 mineral oils and I am not one of them. But I knew exactly 



