V 

 SPRAYING 



By many persons, spraying is evidently regarded 

 as the panacea for all the fruit grower's troubles. 

 It is expected to rid the tree of every insect, to kill 

 every fungus, to extirpate bacteria, to heal the 

 wounds left by the whifHetrees, to repair the neglect 

 of drainage, to offset unfavorable weather and to 

 abate the taxes. At the very outset of this chapter 

 we must understand, therefore, that the beneficial 

 results of spraying are strictly limited to a few 

 items, and that there are many troubles which can- 

 not be reached by this means. Furthermore, spray- 

 ing can be of no possible use in any case unless it be 

 intelligently done. The work must be given at 

 exactly the right time, certain remedies must be 

 applied for specific diseases, and many more small 

 details must be looked after in just the correct 

 fashion, or the whole work will come to naught. 



In broad terms, we spray for the suppression of 

 fungous and insect attacks. The spraying for fungi 

 is almost wholly preventive — rarely or never cura- 

 tive. In practical application this means that when 

 a tree appears to be suffering from the attacks of 

 any fungus it is already too late to do any effective 

 spraying. It is also to be noticed that a number of 

 serious plant diseases are caused by bacteria instead 

 of by fungi, and that such diseases can very seldom 

 be checked in the slightest by any kind of spraying. 

 The deadly pear blight is of this number. Diseases 

 which can be more or less completely prevented by 



76 



