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The old orchard has been badly infested with worms for many years, and until the 
present season the north half of my orchard has been practically worthless, the trees 
shedding most of their fruit in May and early part of June, the little which remained 
being so wormy as to be largely unfit for market, while the south half has borne fair 
crops, comparatively free from worms. 
Soil, drainage, and other conditions being similar throughout, I am constrained to 
the belief that the near proximity of the old and worm-infested trees to the north 
side of my orchard is the cause of the difference above noted. 
Acting upon information obtained from one of your pamphlets, I bought last spring 
a full spraying outfit, using the Climax preparation of London purple sold by the 
Nixon Company. 
Soon after the blossoms fell I began spraying on the side nearest the old orchard, 
the machine working perfectly, the Climax nozzle breaking up the solution into a 
fine mist which completely enveloped the trees. 
After working a day and a half and applying the poison to about one-third of the 
trees, I suspended operations on account of the weather becoming so windy as to 
make the work exceedingly disagreeable, one of the men being made sick by having 
the poison blown into his face. 
Influenced to some, extent by the skepticism of my neighbors, most of whom re- 
garded the experiment as highly dangerous, and confessing to no small lack of faith 
myself, I regret to say that I allowed other work on the farm to interfere, and never 
finished the work of spraying. 
With the mental reservation that should the heretofore barren north side where 
the poison had been applied do as well as the south half, I would spray more thor- 
oughly next year, I waited the outcome with an indifference born of unbelief. 
Please note the result. From the sprayed trees, not quite one-third the whole num- 
ber, I gathered 1,000 barrels of A 1 merchantable fruit so entirely free from worms 
that sorting was almost unnecessary, while the remaining two-thirds of the orchard 
yielded 883 barrels of good fruit, quite one-fifth of the apples on the unsprayed trees 
being wormy and unfit forsale. The market price of apples in this section the past 
season was from 60 to 75 cents per barrel, one or two choice lots of Ben Davis and 
York Imperial bringing $1 per barrel, while my fruit sold in the orchard nearly a 
month before picking at $2.55 per barrel. 
I estimate the cost of failure to spray the whole orchard at $2,500, but consider 
the lesson cheap at the price, as I shall never have it to learn again, and feel confi- 
dent that with ordinary care no harmful results will follow the spraying.—[John 8. 
Lupton, Virginia, November 20, 1891. 
The Tin Can Remedy for Cut-worms. 
To protect cabbage, tomato, and other small plants, after transplanting them, 
from the ravages of ‘‘ Cut-worms” can be accomplished cheaply and effectually by 
inclosing the plant and fencing out the depredators. Around almost every dwell- 
ing are to be found numbers of discarded tin cans that have been used for presery- 
ing fruit, oysters, and the like. If these cans be collected and each held for a few 
minutes over a hot fire the bottoms and tops will drop off and then the rest of the 
can should be slipped over a round stick of wood and with a chisel cut in the middle 
and the two halves hammered smooth and round, and it will then make the fence to 
protect the plants. See that no “ Cut-worms” are in the ground near the plants, 
then place this fence around the plant and push it a little into the earth, and the 
plant will be protected and beyond the reach of its spoilers. After all danger from 
‘“Cut-worms” is past the fencing can be taken away and housed for future use. 
There is no better or more profitable use that old cans can be put to than doing 
the work of protecting our garden plants from one of their greatest enemies. 
