CONFEKENCE ON SPRAYING OF FRUIT TREES. 



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or damp days to bring about potato disease simultaneously all over the 

 place. The disease appears, not in one plant in one corner to be 

 carried by wind, or rabbits, or game of any kind from one plant to 

 another, but simultaneously all over the field ; and that simultaneous 

 appearance, of course, is against the theory of infection of any kind what- 

 ever. This case affords an illustration of a fact that applies in the case 

 of many fruit trees. 



Most of you who have done any spraying will admit that Bordeaux 

 mixture is not the perfect success it might be. It is least successful 

 during a wet season, when the epidemic, as a rule, is most evident. It is 

 undoubtedly true that in a damp or wet season you have the greatest 

 amount of disease, and the spray is least efficient for several reasons, 

 for the physical reason that you cannot get it on the foliage to begin 

 with, and if you manage to get it on, the foliage is scorched and falls ; 

 so, generally speaking, I should say that, although there is a certain 

 amount of good to be derived from summer spraying on foliage, it is 

 reduced to a minimum, and I should strongly advocate winter spraying 

 instead of summer spraying. Winter spraying is far more important. 

 You may apply far more drastic methods, since there is no fear of killing 

 any part of the plant during winter, than you can in summer, when it 

 is practically certain that the foliage will be scorched if anything in the 

 way of drastic measures be applied. 



I may take the peach as the standard of plant or tree that will bear 

 the least strong sprays, or, in other words, that will scorch most readily. 

 On the other hand, I should point out the gooseberry leaves as fairly hard. 

 Much, of course, depends upon the season and upon the degree of hard- 

 ness. If spraying begins in early spring, or if a plant sprayed is growing 

 in a shady place where the foliage is soft, then scorching is likely to occur 

 and the spray is blamed. If the plant has been exposed to the sun no 

 burning or scorching follows. All these factors have to be taken into 

 consideration. The man who grows his plants in shady places proclaims 

 his failure. The man who has plants growing in the open says the 

 spraying is quite a success. Of course, I believe, no amount of spraying 

 will atone for unclean cultivation. Some people nowadays think, 

 " Well, spraying has been advanced ; I will spray them," and put all 

 their energies into spraying and nothing else. The result is invariable 

 failure. I do not want you to take one week, or one year, or one orchard, 

 but take the average together. Have we less disease at the present day 

 than we had before spraying was invented ? In America, for instance, if 

 you read the spraying side you think, " Can there be anything left to 

 spray? Absolutely impossible ! " But in the Bureau of Statistics Record in 

 all probability the disease is found to be greater and greater every year ; but 

 I do not know whether it is greater in proportion to the area cultivated. 

 Of course the area cultivated becomes more and more extended every 

 year, so that if the disease only remained the same, we should get a 

 greater amount. But still diseases do exist, and we have as much disease 

 in Great Britain at the present day as we had before spraying was 

 discovered — that is, in proportion to the greater area. One reason for 

 this is the neglect of certain primary points that were carried out by 

 our forefathers. They seem to have had very much more time than 



