1 78 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Pruning is also essential. We must have some of that work 

 done in order to get good fruit. If we want finely-colored fruit 

 we must not allow too much old dead wood, or allow the growth 

 to become so rank as to shut out the sunshine. Fruit must 

 have sunlight to get good color. Potash in the soil may have 

 much to do with it, but at the same time I believe it is the sun 

 that gives the color. 



Then again, if we are taking pretty good care of the orchard 

 by cultivating, and thorough spraying, and we have got to look 

 out for these fungous diseases — and we are apt to have along 

 with them a very heavy set of fruit — that involves another 

 condition, for in order to get high grade fruit we must resort 

 to thinning. 



Now as to some results if we apply these factors in the culti- 

 vation of fruit. Taking my orchard, which is thirty-five or 

 forty years old, and which for a long time was somewhat 

 neglected, but going back fifteen years, I have followed up a 

 record of the sales of the crop, and have figured up to see what 

 better care has done for that old orchard. And it is a fact, as 

 can be shown from my record back to 1886, the seven years 

 previous to 1894, and comparing those with the seven crops 

 since 1894, and taking the total crop of those seven years, and 

 taking the average annual production of the seven years since 

 1894, there were only twenty-four bushels produced for those 

 wdiole seven years more than there were previous, in any 

 one year, that is, taking the average since 1894. I first began 

 to spray with London Purple, but I soon gave that up 

 because of its uncertain quality, and the uncertainty of the 

 amount of poison it contained. Of course, it was new, and we 

 did not know very much about it. and I did burn the foliage 

 some. If I had used some lime, I think I would have got along 

 better. Beginning with 1895, I started in to use the Bordeaux 

 and Paris green, and that year the crop was very marked for 

 the improvement in the quality of the fruit, and for larger 

 production over previous years. And then in 1896 there was 

 a large yield, which was general throughout the country. Up 

 to that time it was the largest yield we had any record of. Then 

 in 1897 and 1898 there was a pretty fair crop in each year. In 

 1899 there resulted the largest crop that had been produced in 

 the orchard, exceeding that of the year 1896 by something like 



