February 13, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



69 



A PJlACriCAL VIEW OK SPRAYING. 



Mr. Albert Wood, of Orleans County, said he had an orchard 

 of twenty-tive acres on a gravelly loam. The trees were too 

 close at two rodsapart. The shaded ground became mossy ; 

 the red apples showed little color. He went tlu'ough the 

 orchard and cut out every other tree six years ago, since which 

 time he has cultivated and fed those that were left. In 

 1893 he sprayed two trees ; on these the apples were good, 

 while most of the others went to the dry house. On the 20th 

 of April, 1894, he sprayed his orchard, except fourteen trees 

 left for comparison, with twenty pounds of copper sulphate, 

 four pails of lime and 150 gallons of water. He sprayed again 

 as the buds were swelling, and again when the apples were 

 half an inch in diameter. About this time the apples on un- 

 sprayed trees began to drop. With the last two sprayings he 

 used Paris green — one pound to each 150 gallons of water. On 

 the fourteen trees not treated the foliage was rusty. The 

 thirty-five barrels of fruit he picked from them shrank five 

 barrels between picking and selling. Of the 2,000 barrels of 

 treated fruit the shrinkage was not five barrels in the same 

 time, and they brought thirty-eight cents more a barrel. On 

 a Strawberry Apple-tree that had not had a perfect apple in 

 nine years every apple was sound. Similar results were had with 

 King, Baldwin and Twenty-ounce trees. Of Roxbury Russets 

 three-fourths of the untreated apples were ground tor cider, 

 while most of those treated were good. Roxburys should have 

 tive sprayings a season. 



Pears were treated in the same way as the Apples. Some 

 Virgalieus had borne no perfect fruit for twenty-five years, and 

 this year, when sprayed, there was no imperfect fruit. His 

 results showed ninety percent, gain by spraying. In a young 

 orchard-row not treated the leaves fell three weeks earlier, 

 and the foliage was not as heavy as on the sprayed trees. 

 He had similar results with treated and untreated Cherry 

 and Plum trees. From Fay's Currants which had been sprayed 

 he picked fruit twenty days after others were gone. He 

 thought the Bordeaux mixture should be applied as a mist, 

 and that the Vermorel nozzle was best except for the higher 

 trees, where the McGowan was the best. A tree should be 

 sprayed till it drips. You cannot throw Bordeaux mixture far 

 when reduced to a fog, and, therefore, for large trees long 

 bamboo-poles must be used to hold the nozzle close to the 

 foliage. He used 900 pounds of copper sulphate for thirty 

 days' spraying. 



PEACHES AND APRICOTS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 



Mr. Nelson C. Smith, of Geneva, said that these fruits could 

 be successfully produced with proper study and care. It will 

 not answer to trust to luck for fine fruit, and fancy fruit alone 

 brings fancy prices. It is a greater drain on a tree to pro- 

 duce two bushels of second quality fruit than a bushel of extra- 

 fine fruit. When the trees have done their work, it is neces- 

 sary, if the highest price is secured, to pick the fruit at the 

 critical moment Vifhen it is just ripe enough, but not too 

 ripe, and then it must be packed in small, neat packages. 



The soil best adapted to Peaches is a rich mellow loam with 

 a clay subsoil, preferably high and rolling, near large bodies 

 of water. Half of the previous season's growth should be 

 shortened in every year and cut so as to make a fine-shaped 

 head and kept well supplied with bearing shoots. At six or 

 seven years old it will not need severe cutting. 



The thinning is the most neglected of all the operations of 

 Peach-growing. The fruit should be thinned to five or six 

 inches apart. Some persons believe it costs too much to thin, 

 but the fruit must be picked some time, and in this instance the 

 early picking more than pays in the increased value of the later 

 one, not to speak of the saving of strengtli to the trees. 



Apricots are now known to be hardy on the eastern bank of 

 Seneca Lake, and they are considered better than California 

 fruit. The Early Golden has produced fifteen crops in twenty 

 years. The so called Russian varieties are no more hardy 

 than many others, and are poor in size and quality. Apricots 

 need a dry soil and treatment similar to Peaches. The essen- 

 tials for success are a good location and soil and persistence 

 in fighting thecurculio. It requires judicious marketing and 

 pluck, if any fruit does. It demands severer thinning than any 

 other fruit, for if the fruit is allowed to remain this will check 

 the growth of the tree, and the fruit-buds are formed on the 

 new' wood. Myrobalan and Marianna stocks are best on 

 heavy soils, and Apricot for light soils. 



third week in October — that is, to leave them on as long as pos- 

 sible. When they are picked too early they shrivel. Mr. Bell 

 thought it better to leave Duchess pears on the tree even till a 

 frost touches them than to pick them before the second week 

 in October. Light frost will not injure them. Mr. Morrell, of 

 the Michigan State Horticultural Society, said that trees well 

 fed with phosphoric acid and potash will hold pears two or 

 three weeks longer than those not so fed, and the pears will 

 grow wonderfully during that time. 



In answer to a question as to how to build a cold-storage 

 house, Mr. Lyons described some successful ones as having 

 brick or stone walls for a part of their height, with a double- 

 boarded frame of eight-inch studs above, the space between 

 the boards being tilled with sawdust, and the whole then 

 ceiled inside and out. There are no air-spaces in the brick 

 wall. The buildings are cooled by opening and closing the 

 doors and windows in accordance with the outside tempera- 

 ture. Mr. Boag, of Batavia, spoke of his having two sixteen- 

 inch walls of stone, with a two-inch air-space antl double floors. 

 There were ventilators at the bottom and in the roof. Two 

 years ago he kept apples till May in good condition, wliile 

 many had trouble with mildew. 



Mr. Woodward had fruited the Crosby Peach two years. 

 The trees were productive and ripened fruit a little earlier than 

 the Smock and after Late Crawford. This peach has a small 

 pit, fair flavor, and is not large, but fairly handsome. The tree 

 is a poor grower. On the whole, he is well pleased. Another 

 member stated that all the fruit-buds on Crosby trees were 

 killed in his orchard, liut this was also true of other varieties. 



To a member who asked why his Duchess pears rotted in 

 the ice-house in September, Mr. Barry replied that the trouble 

 was usually caused by picking too early. He considers it 

 best to leave Duchess, and even Anjou, on the trees until the 



Recent Publications. 



A Practical Flora for Schools and Colleges. By Oliver 

 R. Willis, A. M., Ph. D., New York. American Book 

 Company. 



What Dr. Willis means by a practical flora is explained 

 in the preface of this book to be one which "shows the 

 practical aspects of the vegetable world and its relation to 

 the needs of every-day life, for the purpose of engaging 

 the interest and the enthusiasm of such pupils as do not 

 have the scientific mind which makes the acquirement of 

 the science an end in itself, nor the poetic temperament 

 required for the love of the study for itself." In carryino- 

 out his design for arousing effort on the part of students 

 whose mental endowment is somewhat restricted, Dr. 

 Willis has added to the ordinary scientific description of 

 plants generally found in school botanies some account 

 of the economic features and the history of the different 

 species. Since there are few plants which do not have 

 some qualities which are useful, or hurtful, or ornamental, 

 it is evident that the selection of these so-called practical 

 notes should be very carefully made if the work is to have 

 any proportion or symmetry, especially since the flora and 

 its practical annex are contained within the limits of three 

 hundred pages. In this selection we do not think that 

 Dr. Willis has been altogether happy. Sometimes he goes 

 into details which hardly seem attractive to the boy who 

 does not love science for its own sake, as, for example, 

 when he states that opium, the product of the Poppy, 

 "is a very complex substance, containing a large number 

 of bases in combination with sulphuric and meconic acids. 

 Morphine, whose formula is C,, H„NOj, ami narcotine, whose 

 formula C..,., H.,:, NO, are the most abundant and important," 

 and to these he adds the formulas of codeine, thebaine, 

 papaverine and narceine, which need not be repeated here. 

 Excursions like this into the realms of organic chemistry 

 might easily make a very large and repulsive work for 

 pupils with no hunger for exact science, but at times these 

 notes are much more popular as, for example, when he 

 states that " no other small fruit is more generally cultivated 

 than the currant, which is not only grown in the gardens 

 of the rich, but is also to be found in the planted ground of 

 the most humble cottager." The information that for 

 "pies, puddings, dumplings and preserves the peach has 

 no equal," does not err in being too profoundly scientific, 

 nor do recipes for making apple butter or quince preserves. 

 In other words. Dr. Willis's practical flora is encumbered 



