40 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



Professor Taft: Along this same line I want to refer to an in- 

 stance we had in Michigan. As many of you know, we have a sec- 

 tion in the southwest of Michigan where there are thousands of acres 

 of grapes and for years they were free from black rot. They have a 

 well-drained soil and at the time I am speaking of had a number of 

 years of extreme dry weather in August and September, and as a re- 

 sult of this condition, they grew the grape without spraying and with- 

 out black rot for two or three years, then had excessive rainfall you 

 might say in the summer time and the result is this, that the disease 

 has come in there and has seriously injured the grape and is gradually 

 spreading until it covers the entire section. Right here was the need 

 of remedies and this question was taken up and we found we could 

 control this rot by spraying. This year the unsprayed vineyards have 

 lost the entire crop, and where they have sprayed thoroughly, perhaps 

 five or six times and have done the work thoroughly, they have saved 

 the crop, there is hardly a grape to the bunch that is destroyed, and 

 when it comes to fighting insects and diseases we ought not only 1 to 

 consider the soil and climate, but the extreme thoroughness in applica- 

 tion which I think was referred to by both speakers. Where they 

 have tried to spray and control rot, by two or three applications, it has 

 been largely a failure. We have had the same thing too with our 

 apple orchards this year. We found that the men who sprayed the 

 longest and those who were the most thorough in their applications 

 had the best success. They sprayed five or six or seven times and 

 had fruit free from scab, while the unsprayed trees, or those sprayed 

 two or three times, have suffered seriously. 



Mr. Kendel : Dr. Woods spoke about frosts and it recalled to my 

 mind a visit I made a couple of weeks ago with a florist who was 

 protecting himself against early frosts in my section of the country; 

 we are apt to have a frost in October and then six weeks of nice 

 weather following. Two years ago it occurred the 20th of September 

 when it touched the corn, squashes and all kinds of crops. This man 

 had a tent as large as this room constructed of mosquito netting that 

 he has used for three years for covering his dahlias. The first year 

 he put this up the outfit was paid for from cuttings of dahlias that 

 were under the tent after the first frost. Outside of the tent every- 

 thing was destroyed and under it everything was saved. I do not 

 know the accuracy of a statement which I read some time ago, that 

 the frost created an acid in the plant that destroyed it. I have my 

 doubts whether that is true, because some years ago I had a Chinese 

 lily growing in my bedroom and the fire of the furnace went out and 

 the plant froze solid, the water in the dish was also frozen solid. I 

 set that Chinese lily, which was in full bloom, into my wash basin 

 and sprinkled it with ice water. That night the Chinese lily was 

 blooming as though nothing had happened. Now, if the frost put 

 acid into the plant, then the cold water took it out again. Possibly 

 there is some remedy in that direction for preventing damage from an 

 early frost. 



