CHAPTER XXI. 



SPRAYING WITH LIME AND SULPHUR. 



Bv Arthur Miskin, of Ladd's Court, Chart Sutton, Kent. 



Having been asked to write my experi- 

 ence of the use of lime-sulphur as a spray 

 wash for fruit trees, etc., I am only too 

 pleased to do so, feeling quite convinced 

 that the more it is used the higher the 

 standard of British fruit will be raised, 

 and in a measure it will prevent the 

 foreign grower having the best of our 

 markets to himself. 



The use of lime-sulphur was first 

 brought to my notice by a fruit grower 

 from the Argentine, who was visiting me 

 in the summer of 1909. He found a con- 

 siderable amount of scab on my apples, 

 and asked why I had it, ajad I told him 

 that I could find no remedy except 

 Bordeaux mixture, and that was uncer- 

 tain and very liable to russet and crack the 

 fruit, so that when we used it, it was with 

 a certain amount of fear of doing more 

 damage than good. He informed me that 

 lime and sulphur could be used without 

 this risk, and that it was the finest fungi- 

 cide that he had ever used ; he added 

 that the spray should be used as soon as 

 possible after the leaf had fallen, and again 

 in the spring just before the buds burst. 



The following winter, 1909-10, I sprayed 

 a considerable extent of my fruit once 

 only, having some control pieces, and the 

 following summer the results were so 

 marked that I felt more than convinced 

 that it was a remarkably fine spray to use, 

 and since then I spray every tree I have 

 (over 100 acres) with this compound, and 

 I find that every tree so sprayed is cleaned 

 of all lichen and moss growth, thus 

 destroying the home for all kinds of 

 insect pests. In addition, the foliage and 

 fruits come mxich larger and better; in 

 fact, in the case of plums, it is quite re- 

 markable how much bigger the leaves are 

 than on unsprayed trees. Again, the 

 apples grown after this application are 



much freer from scab than I have ever 

 seen them before; Allington Pippin and 

 Worcester Pearmain, two sorts very liable 

 to scab in my district, grew very clean 

 last season. I am ready to discount the 

 fact that the 1911 growth stands out as 

 a particularly fine and free growth of 

 apples, nevertheless I made exception- 

 ally good prices of these varieties, as my 

 salesmen can testify. 



Then again, I firmly believe that brown 

 rot may be eradicated by the use of this 

 spray. However, it should be remem- 

 bered I am giving my own experience, 

 and the healthy appearance of all my trees 

 has been continually commented upon by 

 fruit growers who see them, and I am 

 only too pleased to let anyone inspect 

 them who chooses to ask me or will come 

 and see me. 



I do not call it an insecticide, except 

 that it apparently destroys the eggs; it 

 may be that it kills them, or it may be 

 that it causes them to peel ofi the wood. I 

 am not prepared to say which, but I will 

 quote two cases. In the autumn of 1910 

 I sprayed all my trees with the exception 

 of about half an acre of Elvers' plums in 

 the corner of an orchard. Night came 

 on too soon for us to finish that day, and I 

 did not wish to start up the whole of my 

 machinery for this small piece the next 

 day, and so I thought I would leave it, 

 and spray it when we were spraying again 

 in the spring, which we accordingly did. 

 The result was that in the summer the 

 part of the orchard that was twice sprayed 

 had no aphis at all, and much better and 

 finer fruit than the half-acre only sprayed 

 once, which had a lot of aphis, and which 

 I had to spray three times for aphis, and 

 then the fruit was not nearly so good 

 and there was less of it. Another exam- 

 ple : — My apple trees were so clean that it 



