igii 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 2^ 



trolling the codling moth without refer- 

 ence to the curculio. The remarkably 

 successful results of apple growers in 

 the Rocky Mountain, Pacific and North- 

 western States, in controlling codling 

 moth are Based upon methods aimed at 

 this insect alone, since the curculio is 

 not destructive if at all present in those 

 sections. Missouri fruit growers must, 

 however, make allowance for an addi- 

 tional and equally important factor — the 

 curculio. There have been, upon the 

 other hand, some very effective plans of 

 sprays advised by entomologists, after 

 experimental trials, to be used on apples 

 with curculio principally in view. Since 

 both insects have always to be dealt with 

 in Missouri orchards it seemed that the 

 problem was worthy of further study in 

 perfecting sprays serving both purposes. 



The orchard spraying problem in Mis- 

 souri, like many of the Mississippi \''al- 

 ley States, is further complicated by the 

 prevalence of several serious fungus dis- 

 eases, most prominent of these being 

 apple scab and bitter-rot. In the experi- 

 ments of the writer these were taken 

 into consideration, and in so far as they 

 have bearing upon the sprays for the 

 two insects under discussion they will 

 be briefly referred to later. 



Figure 9— PICKED APPLES FROM PLAT 5 

 No. I's, on left, 70 per cent; No. 2's, on right, 30 per cent 



Figure 6— PUPAE OF CODLING MOTH IN 

 (From Ouaintance, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



Spraying experiments were made in 

 1908 on a portion of the large commer- 

 cial orchard belonging to the Olden 

 Fruit Company, situated at Olden, in 

 Howell County. This orchard, contain- 

 ing in all nearly eighteen hundred acres 

 of fruit, lies upon the Frisco Railroad, 

 about one hundred miles east of Spring- 

 field. It is in the Ozark region of South- 

 ern Missouri. 



It was assumed at the outset that a 

 spray of bordeaux mixture applied before 

 bloom for the purpose of preventing 

 scab was necessary, and a good sized 

 block, principally of Gano, Ben Davis 

 and Jonathan, was sprayed. A late frost 

 destroyed the crop on the first block 

 sprayed, and another block of Ingram 

 was set apart. The Ingram is a very 

 late blooming variety, which gave an 

 opportunity of continuing the experi- 

 ment as originally planned, except that 

 the dormant spray of bordeaux mixture 

 was not given. This did not, however, 

 affect the plan in any way in controlling 

 the curculio or codling moth. The block 

 set aside was a portion about forty rows 

 square, of a ninety-acre orchard of this 

 variety. The oldest trees were about 

 nine years old. but many had been 



replaced by j'ounger ones. A small plat 

 originally forming a part of the block 

 selected was later discontinued so that 

 there were by actual count 1.496 trees in 

 the experimental plat, of which 743 trees 

 were of bearing age. One hundred fifty- 

 three trees of bearing age were reserved 

 without spray for comparison with those 

 sprayed. The plats re- 

 ceiving the different 

 treatments were from 

 seven to eight rows in 

 width and from 25 to 40 

 rows long, each con- 

 taining from 85 to 153 

 trees bearing fruit. All 

 trees in each plat were 

 given the first spraying 

 whether they bore fruit 

 or not. 



The dates and other 

 details of treatment for 

 all plats are shown in 

 Table I, except for one 

 plat which was set aside 

 for testing home-made 

 and commercial arsenates of lead, which 

 is described later. It will be seen that 

 in all of the principal plats ten pounds 

 Swift's arsenate of lead was used for 

 each 200-gallon tank; where paris green 

 was used it was at a strength of six 

 ounces of poison and four to six pounds 

 of lime for each fifty gallons of water. 



COCOONS 

 Year Book, 1907) 



The spraying apparatus consisted of a 

 Friend gasoline power outfit. The engine 

 was of the air-cooled type, rated at two 

 and a half horse power, geared directly 

 to a duplex pump with propeller agi- 

 tator. The pressure usually varied from 

 150 pounds to 225 pounds. The spraying 

 was done both from an elevated plat- 

 form and from the ground. The writer, 

 with an assistant, Mr. C. B. Dull, handled 

 the spray poles for all sprayings through- 

 out the season, and aside from a team- 

 ster completed the spraying crew. For 

 the first application, when bordeaux 

 mixture had to be prepared, it required 

 another man at the mixing tank. 



The principal comparisons planned 

 were the following: 



(a) The comparison of early and late 

 sprays, with early sprays only in control- 

 ling both curculio and codling moth. 

 From summary it will be seen that Plats 

 1 and 2 bring out this contrast, as do 

 also Plats 3 and 4, and the results may 

 be seen from Tables IV, V, VI and VII. 



(b) Early sprays given at short inter- 

 vals with special reference to curculio 

 control, as in Plats 1 and 2, compared 

 with early sprays at longer intervals with 

 reference to codling moth control as 

 given in Plats 3 and 4. The results of 

 this comparison may be also seen in 

 Tables IV, V, VI and VII. 



Figure 10— PICKED APPLES FROM PLAT 2 

 No. I's on right, 80 per cent; No. 2's on left, 20 per cent. Cash value of crop doubled by sprays 



