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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Chairman then called upon Mr. Hammond for his paper. 



" Spraying and Spraying Machinery." 



Mr. G. Hammond : The first remark I want to make is that the 

 paper I am about to read has been prepared by my son. He knew that 

 I was very busily engaged in public work ; and on his own account he 

 prepared this paper, as he had the details of all the experiments we had 

 carried out. He had the advantage for a year or two of making him- 

 self familiar with mechanical engineering and he got a smattering of 

 chemistry into the bargain. Therefore 1 am going to read a paper which 

 I personally have not prepared, but which embodies the result of a large 

 number of experiments extending over a considerable number of years. 



The subject of spraying is so very many-sided and so complex, and at 

 the same time so specialized, and furthermore there are so many persons 

 more capable than I of speaking to you on their special phases of the 

 subject, that I make no further apology to you for treating spraying this 

 afternoon in a general way, and offering you a few remarks from a fruit 

 grower's point of view. 



In the first place, as a fruit grower I view the practice of spraying 

 as a regrettable necessity — a necessity inasmuch as without it we have at 

 present no remedy against many of our foes — and regrettable, as it is at 

 once both costly and difficult to accomplish successfully on a large scale. 



Fruit growers do not, as one of our friends well said at a meeting here, 

 regard themselves as sent by Providence to be users of spray fluids for 

 the makers' benefit and the support of the chemical industry ; and the 

 less they can use and yet keep their trees healthy, vigorous, and fruitful 

 the better pleased they are. 



If we could always keep our trees in thoroughly good growing 

 condition, in good suitable soil and with proper relationship of branch 

 and root, or briefly, in the condition which a fruit grower describes as 

 being "in good heart," we should have little, if any, need of spraying. 



Everyone knows that if only one can keep one's physical health up to 

 the mark the system will throw off all germs of disease, which find an 

 easy entrance into the system of one who is run down or below par. 



It is the same with our fruit trees. It is a well-known fact to all who 

 have dealings with fruit trees, that it is the sickly and overcropped trees 

 that are the worst affected with aphides ; the strong and vigorous seem to 

 be able to keep free of the pest. It passed almost into a proverb with the 

 old-fashioned fruit hands, "No apples, no maggot," as they used to call 

 the winter moth caterpillar. It should therefore be our first aim to keep 

 our trees in good growing condition by proper manuring, cultivation and 

 pruning, so as to give them the best chance possible of resisting disease. 



Y< t though we may do all in our power for our fruit trees, and we 

 may have very good soil and situation for them, yet the factor in the 

 1 iii-mess which is beyond our control, viz. the climate, will often thwart 

 our efforts and bring our trees under the influence of pests for which we 

 must needs spray, or lose our crop, and perhaps nearly all our trees. 



The enemies against which the fruit grower has to fight by spraying, 

 or any other method available, may be divided into two classes : vegetable 



