340 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
at that time, ordinarily, on account of our friends, 
the bees.” 
Coote reports that peaches under glass set less 
fruit when sprayed in full bloom with either warm 
or cold water than they did when pollinated by 
means of a brush.* 
RENOVATING OLD ORCHARDS. 
It is impossible to give any specific method of 
procedure when it is desired to renovate an old 
and profitless orchard. It is first necessary to dis- 
cover the causes of its unprofitableness—to diagnose 
the difficulty—and then to go straight at the root 
of the evil. It must be remembered, too, that an 
old, neglected orchard cannot be expected to arrive 
at the profitable condition which trees enjoy which 
have received proper care from the beginning, no 
matter how thorough the means of recuperating it 
may be. At the best, one can only make an apol- 
ogy for long years of neglect and mistakes. It is 
probable, too, that the trees may sometimes become 
so fixed in habit that no amount of good treatment 
can make them bear satisfactorily. If the grower 
once arrives at a clear conception of the agencies 
which make for productiveness, he will readily per- 
ceive what the trouble with his orchard may be. 
In general, it may be said that the first thing 
to do to revive an old orchard is to till the land. 
* George Coote, Bull. 34, Oregon Exp. Sta. (1895). This bulletin also con- 
tains observations on the pollen production of varieties of fruits, 
