CONFERENCE ON SPRAYING OF FRUIT TREES, 



311 



fruit. Such shoots should be removed of course. No amount of 

 spraying of a dead branch will kill the winter form, especially if it is 

 in the form of living mycelium, which has to make its way out at the 

 proper time. Spraying is absolutely waste of time, waste of money, 

 and waste of energy from every standpoint. If those tips had been 

 removed, and if cleanliness were attended to, an epidemic would become 

 an impossibility ; fungus would be there, but not in sufficient quantity 

 to cause an epidemic — it has a perfect right to be there, as much as 

 the tree. You know we take a very one-sided view. We object to the 

 presence of fungus because it goes against our interest. Cleanliness 

 is the thing in almost every case ; you will find that in most fungi there 

 is some arrangement for retiring for the winter .somewhere, and the 

 thing is to apply as drastically as you can during the winter the various 

 methods that you can apply practically without any fear of doing harm, 

 and then you have less work to do in the summer. You may depend 

 upon it, if you leave the spray, or the preventive method, until the tree 

 is in bloom, nine times out of ten it will be a perfect failure. Of course 

 if you are going to do it in an experimental ground you will probably 

 spray five or six times during the season, and just when you want it, 

 and be perfectly certain. Those are the arguments usually brought 

 forward : somebody has a bad orchard and devotes time to it from 

 their certain standpoint, and they can very truly say, " Look at the 

 perfect success." But what you want to presume is what the every-day 

 grower can apply without any scientific arrangement of any kind whatever. 

 You want it to be to you as simple as sowing seed, or planting a tree, or 

 anything else you are familiar with. Unless the thing can be clearly 

 practicable, so that any ordinary workman can do it, it will, I think, be 

 called a complete failure. 



Those are the main points. I am afraid what I have to say will not 

 convince you ; but I am perfectly convinced that winter work tells, and if 

 the two could be kept apart — summer work alone, and winter work alone — 

 I believe that winter work would be found more effective than summer 

 work, depending on the particular kind of disease of course. In the case 

 of scab to which I was referring, in every tree which has had scab for 

 several years you will find numerous dead shoots. Those dead shoots in 

 all probability harbour the disease, and the disease very often starts 

 from those points, and follows on to the foliage when the foliage is young. 

 It is only young leaves that can be infected. It is only young growing 

 parts that can be infected. When the part has become rigid, and 

 what is technically called hard, if you are dealing with foliage, then 

 it becomes no longer possible, or, if it is possible, the fungus produces 

 only insignificant blotches which do not interfere with the general 

 work of the foliage in a given tree. The spray that has perhaps proved 

 as effective as any for winter use in connection with apple and pear 

 scab is sulphate of copper — one pound of sulphate of copper in twenty- 

 five gallons of water. You want to spray everything — not only the tree, 

 but the surrounding ground and everything near. Spores may reach 

 anywhere. It may be a mycological myth to say they do so, but I think 

 you will all admit one thing : if you had not spores floating about you 

 would not have the disease. I do not suppose anyone argues that the 



