82 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
diseases. This operation has developed 
within memory of the present generation, 
yet I doubt if the full significance of the 
rapidity with which spraying has come 
to be a universal practice, and an abso- 
lutely essential one, occurs to very Many 
minds. 
What is probably the first reference to 
the spraying of an apple orchard made 
in a horticultural meeting is recorded 
in the proceedings of the Western New 
York Horticultural Society for 1879. The 
account refers to a fruit grower in West- 
ern New York having been troubled the 
season before with canker worms. The 
report reads: ‘He procured a force pump 
and sprinkled the trees with water con- 
taining paris green. This not only en- 
tirely rid them of the canker worms, but 
to his surprise those apples which grew 
in that part of his orchard (the part 
that was ‘sprinkled’) were entirely free 
from codling moth worms. * * * ” 
The one who gave this account, writing 
later of his experience in presenting the 
facts before the horticultural society 
meeting, says: “I * * * shall never 
forget this (the presentation of the mat- 
ter) because of the way in which I was 
jumped upon as a crank.”* 
From this beginning the practice of 
spraying fruit trees for insects, especially 
codling moth, began to receive some slight 
attention from experimenters. 
Slightly earlier recommendations than 
those of 1879 above mentioned were ap- 
parently thade by the entomologist of 
the United States Department of Agricul- 
ture, but the New York State Experiment 
Station was the first station to publish 
a report on the use of poisons (paris 
green in this case) for the control of the 
codling moth. This occurred in the An- 
nual Report for 1885 of the station men- 
tioned above. 
Spraying to control fungus diseases has 
developed apace with the control of in- 
sect pests, though in this country it did 
not receive serious attention until some 
time after spraying for insects had be- 
come more or less common. 
Spraying for fungus diseases may be 
* Spraying of Plants by E. G Lodeman, p. 63. 
said to have begun with the accidental] 
discovery in 1882 of the preparation which 
later came to be known as Bordeaux 
mixture. This occurred in connection 
with the control of grape diseases in 4 
vineyard in France. 
It was apparently not till 1885 that 
Bordeaux mixture was used tor the con- 
trol of other diseases than those of grapes, 
It was about this time, o1 perhaps in 
1884, that the control of diseases by liquid 
sprays first began to receive attention in 
this country. It was in the same year 
(1885) that the first formula for making 
Bordeaux was published in this country. 
This appeared in a report from the United 
States Department of Agriculture. In this 
same report appeared what is probably the 
first published suggestion that apple scab 
might possibly be controlled or at least 
checked by the application of some fun- 
gicide. 
The formula for making Bordeaux mix- 
ture was widely copied by the agricul- 
tural press and in other publications, 
though spraying did not appear to “take” 
with anything like the favor that might 
naturally be supposed in view of its prom- 
ising possibilities. The “experimental 
age” in American agriculture had not then 
arrived! The annual report of the then 
Section of Vegetable Pathology of the 
United States Department of Agriculture 
for 1887 appears to contain the first def- 
inite recommendation for the control of 
apple scab by the use of Bordeaux mux- 
ture. It was this same year, I believe, 
that Congress authorized federal aid in 
the establishment of an agricultural ex- 
periment station in each state in the 
Union. Spraying for the control of in- 
sects and fungus diseases at once became 
a subject of much experimentation at 
many of these stations which were located 
in important fruit producing states. 
The rest of the story about spraying 
is quickly told. There was much to learn 
about this operation, however, and its 
acceptance as an essential factor in fruit 
growing was very gradual. The decade 
from 1890 to 1900 may be referred to as 
the “test period” of the operation and the 
period during which the fact of spraying 
as an important orchard practice was be- 
