ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Fruit Crops. 



Notwithstanding several adverse circumstances, the fruit crop of the Province was. 

 a good one, and satisfactory profits were realized. If the crop was short in one section it 

 was abundantly made up somewhere eke. " Notwithstanding all disadvantages, the 

 returns from all over the Province, with the exception of a few northerly counties, show 

 that the supply of fruit, more especially apples, was considerably more than sufficient for 

 home consumption, very large shipments having been made to England and the United 

 States from the western fruitgrowing section. Pears, peaches, plums and smaller fruits, 

 were also shipped from many localities." (November Crop Report.) 



Insect enemies were the cause of much loss ; but most convincing evidence was again 

 given this year of the value of spraying, and undoubtedly one of the most instructive and 

 interesting exhibits at the Toronto Industrial Fair was the display of fruit gathered from 

 sprayed and unsprayed trees in the same orchard. These orchards were those in which 

 Mr. W. M. Orr, the Provincial Superintendent of Spraying Experiments, had carried on 

 his work during the summer of 1898, and were situated in twenty-four different local- 

 ities. There were in all 250 plates of fruit. The owners of the orchards were in no way 

 interested in trying to prove that spraying was or was not beneficial, but were practical 

 men anxious only to know how to get the largest returns of money from their property. 

 They would, therefore, be the very people to acknowledge poor results. The superin- 

 tendent had nothing to do with the selection of the actual fruit shown, and did not see it 

 until it arrived in Toronto, where he took charge of it and displayed it to good effect as a 

 most convincing proof of the efficiency of spraying. At the last meeting of the Ontario 

 Fruit Growers' Association at St. Catharines on December 2nd, 1898, Mr. Orr read his report 

 on the results of the experimental spraying work carried on for the Ontario Government 

 under his direction during the year. This is a most valuable document, and will be 

 published in full in the Report of the Fruit Growers' Association. Mr. Orr explains his 

 method of work and gives extracts from the letters of some of the owners of the orchards. 

 In estimating the percentage of perfect apples, a part of the tree was picked clean and 

 the fruit carefully examined ; every specimen that had a worm or a spot, no matter how- 

 small, being rejected as imperfect. Some of the facts given and the figures which sub- 

 stantiate them will certainly convince many that spraying does mcst decidedly pay. The 

 spraying must, however, be done properly, without stint of labour or materials, with the 

 best obtainable apparatus and at the proper time. I am more and more convinced that 

 failure to protect crops by spraying is due to lack of skill or carelessness in applying the 

 spray, disregard as to the exact date when the successive applications should be made 

 and misdirected economy as to the pump and nozzle used. Occasionally, good, careful 

 fruit growers find that spraying does not always give the results which they expect ; Mr. 

 Orr, however, eays, " The owners of every orchard in which we worked this year, with 

 one exception, — Mr. Curwen, of Goderich — report that the Codling Moth was largely 

 controlled by spraying." 



I give the following quotation from Prof. L. H. Bailey's recent pamphlet, " Impres- 

 sions of Our Fruit-growing Industries," because it bears directly on this point, he says : 

 " Dees spraying pay ? The past season has given strange results in spraying ; in very 

 many instances spraying seemed to do no good. Does spraying pay, then 1 Certainly, 

 the same as tillage and pruning do. We do not know why there were so many unpatis- 

 factory experiences in 1898, but this does not lessen the fact that bugs and fungi should 

 be killed. That spraying pays is as well demonstrated as it is that apple worms, tent cat- 

 erpillars and potato blight are injurious. Markets often fail, but it does not follow that 

 markets are a nuisance. The surest way is to make it a rule to tpray everything every 

 year." {Cornell Bulletin 153, 1898.) 



In summing up the results of the spraying work of the season, Mr. Orr said at St. 

 Catharines : " It appears from results obtained in experimental work that from 65 p.c. 

 to 80 p.c. of perfect fruit can be secured when spraying is regularly and properly done, 

 and when the conditions are favourable, such as an orchard standing high and dry on 

 well-drained land, away from buildings or hedgerows, and the trees planted far enough 



