6?S 



Time of Blossoming of Fruit Trees. [dec, 



are inefficient owing to their impractical nature. I have tried 

 most of the summer spraying fluids recommended with little or 

 no benefit. If Dr. Henneguy is correct as to the adult beetles 

 not feeding upon the leaves, then all poisonous spray-fluids 

 are not only useless, but a waste of time and money. 



Jarring the trees so as to shake off the dead blossoms before 

 the larval and pupal stages are over, will rid the trees of nearly 

 all the pests. An old rick cloth should first be placed beneath 

 the trees, and after a vigorous jarring the blossoms and beetles 

 should be swept up, collected and burnt. In the Board of 

 Agriculture Leaflet No. 15 it is stated that four men and two boys 

 treated 110 trees in a day. Whitehead* states that from a tree 

 " from which at the first shaking nearly 1,000 weevils had fallen, 

 385 were shaken off five hours later and 145 the next day. In 

 the orchard of the Ecole pratique d 'Agriculture des Trois Croix j 

 near Rennes, with 347 apple trees on 8 acres, the cost of treat- 

 ment, which occupied three days, was only £1, nearly 450,000 

 weevils were destroyed, and there was a satisfactory crop of 

 apples." On a large acreage this method of treatment is scarcely 

 practicable. Personally, I have found that persistent and con- 

 sistent winter spraying, in order to keep the trees free from 

 dead bark, lichens and mosses, and the clearing away of all 

 rubbish, leaves, long grass &c, beneath the trees and burning 

 the same, coupled with clean cultivation, form the most practic- 

 able and economical treatment and give the best results. 

 An example of the necessity for clearing away rubbish occurred 

 in an orchard in the Evesham district recently, where in 

 turning over a heap of old prunings and dead wood I found the 

 heap to be alive with the Apple Blossom Weevil. 



NOTES ON THE TIME OF BLOSSOMING OF FRUIT 



TREES. 



Cecil H. Hooper, M.R.A.C. 



With the object of obtaining information as to the period in 

 the blossoming of fruit trees at which the fruit is most 

 susceptible to injury by frost, a record was this year kept 

 day by day of the condition of flowering of the different 



* " Report on Insects and Fungi Injurious to Crops," 1892, p. 47. 



