88 



Mr. Frazer. Thinning and pruning. 



We have a bearing orchard of about 6^ acres of trees scat- 

 tered over ten acres. It had been neglected and was about 33 

 years old. The trees were 33x33 feet apart. They were all touch- 

 nig and were too thick. The orchard was in sod and was rented 

 for pasture for the sum of $25.00 per year and the most the crop 

 had sold for was $75.00, according to the statement of the tenant. 

 I paid the tenant $75.00 to let me have it ; and in ^lay, 1906, I 

 borrowed a sprav rig and we sprayed it. We did some pruning, 

 taking out the dead wood. We sold the fruit on the trees that 

 year with 400 barrels which I had ordered for $900.00. W^e made 

 a map of the orchard showing the varieties. The following year 

 was the off-year, and the land was still in sod, and the crop sold for 

 $630.00. In 1908 the land was plowed and every other tree had 

 been removed during the previous winter. We were able to do 

 this from our map, having carefully noted on it all trees wdiich were 

 of poor varieties or injured and making careful tally to find wdiich 

 row would need to be removed in order to leave the most good 

 trees. W'e took out every other row on the diagonal, sometimes 

 some good trees had to come out ; in other cases we had to put a 

 young tree in, but in spite of the loss of trees the yield that year 

 sold for $1,320.00. The trees were pruned again, taking those 

 which were in bearing. The following vear we sold for $1,340.00 

 and this year, 1910, which should have been our big year we had 

 very poor weather at the time the Greenings were in bloom and 

 had a very small crop of this varietv, which constitutes a large pro- 

 portion of the orchard ; so that our vield this year will not sell 

 for much more than $1,200.00. 



Spraying. 



Our method of spraying during the past year was to spray 

 about the time the buds were breaking until the leaves are the size 

 of a mouse's ear. with lime-sulphur i to 9 with 2 pounds of Arse- 

 nate of Lead to 50 o-allons. This takes care of the Blister mite 

 which is moving at that time and the Arsenate of Lead is for the 

 bud moth and case bearers which have been a serious trouble in 

 Western New York. AA^e intended to sprav again just before the 

 blossoms opened, but left it until the blossoms fell. The omission 

 of No. 2 spraving was a mistake, I believe. The second year we 

 had the orchard we used Bordeaux mixture and Arsenate of Lead 

 for the spraying after bloom, but we had so much injurv from the 

 Bordeaux that we have not used it since, using merely Arsenate 

 of Lead. This gave us good results. We spraved the trees from 

 3 directions with Arsenate of Lead at the strength of 2 pounds to 

 50 gallons, and on trees which would bear 10 to 14 barrels we find 

 we have applied about 17 gallons of solution to a tree in the three 

 s])rayino-s. This was followed in ten davs with a lieht spraying 

 of weak Bordeaux with Arsenate of Lead. This past vear, how- 

 ever, we changed our policv and used Lime-sulphur at the strength 

 of I to .^3 with 2 pounds of Arsenate of Lead as soon as the blos- 

 soms fell and did not applv so much to the tree, but even with this 

 we found we encountered russeting where the fruit met the full 



