172 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



APPLE ROT. 



ULLKTIN44 of the Kentucky Experiment Station con- 

 tains the following statement : " Probably no enemy 

 of the orchardist destroys more fruit, and is the occa- 

 sion of more loss in Kentucky, than the rot fungus, 

 known to botanists as Gloeosporium versicolor.'"' The 

 trees selected for treatment were sprayed four times 

 with Bordeaux mixture during the season, and an 

 equal number were left untreated. In summing up 

 the results of the experiments the following statement 

 is made : " Throughout the summer the trees to which the mixture was applied 

 were more thrifty in appearance, owing to the more healthy green and better 

 general state of the foliage. In every case the leaves began to fall sooner from 

 untreated than from the sprayed trees. The proportion of rotting to not rotting 

 apples was in every case lessened by spraying, and we are in a position to say, 

 as a result of these experiments, that spraying with Bordeaux mixture will save 

 from rotting 7 per cent, to 31 per cent, of the whole number of apples." 



The conclusion arrived at is that the average increase in crop, due to spray- 

 ing, is 97 pounds of fruit per tree. This increase is due to several causes, among 

 which may be mentioned the saving from rot, and the prevention of scab on 

 both foliage and fruit, thus increasing the size of the fruit. 



These results are quite in accord with those obtained at the Ohio Station, 

 and one interesting additional fact may be noted. To test the relative 

 keeping qualities of sprayed and unsprayed fruit, one hundred apple trees free 

 from scab were selected from those that had been sprayed, and an equal num- 

 ber of scabby apples from those that were not sprayed. The apples were stored 

 October 30th, and examined at frequent intervals, all of the rotten fruit being 

 counted and removed each time. This experiment was tried with Baldwin, 

 Smith's Cider, Bellflower, Newton Pippin and Northern Spy. It was found 

 at the end of two weeks that there were nearly three times as many rotten apples 

 among the unsprayed as among the sprayed. There was somewhat less differ- 

 ence between the two lots later in the season, but the sprayed kept better than 

 the unsprayed, and kept longer. In every case some of the sprayed were sound 

 when all of the unsprayed had rotted. 



These experiments, conducted in different States, and without co-operation, 

 give essentially the same results, and serve greatly to strengthen the conclusions 

 arrived at independently. They show that spraying with the Bordeaux mixture 

 pays in the prevention of rot, if in nothing else. As a matter of fact, however, 

 it pays in many other ways. 



