CONFERENCE ON SPRAYING OF FRUIT TREES. 



337 



overgrown with moss and lichens. It seems to me that, for the reason 

 alone of destroying the harbouring places of insects and so on, winter 

 spraying will be worth while, even though the effects of the various washes 

 on the eggs of apple sucker, aphis, and the winter moth and similar pests 

 may remain extremely problematical. 



Last winter we experimented with most of the winter washes which 

 were then on the market, but failed to find any that corroded any very 

 large percentage of the eggs of the apple sucker. All of them made very 

 good work of cleaning the mosses and lichens off the boughs, and to that 

 extent we were successful. We did not try lime and salt wash, but we 

 hear favourable accounts from friends who tried it, particularly when 

 it was applied quite late in the spring. 



We used some lime which had become air-slaked, and found that it 

 stuck on the trees fairly well and cleansed them, and seemed to have 

 cleared off some apple sucker, as they were cleaner than the next row, 

 which was not done ; it may be noted that this was done quite late in the 

 winter. 



What we consider our most favourable result was achieved by the 

 use of hot lime-wash,* made by putting lime straight into water and 

 applying quite hot, and in as thick a condition as possible. It was so 

 hot as to make the delivery hose uncomfortable to hold, and, of course, 

 burnt face and hands when one was so unfortunate as to get any on them. 



Applied during the first fortnight in April, it stuck on the trees 

 splendidly, and is not now entirely gone, a lot still adhering to the rough 

 underside of the branches. As I said before, we considered the result 

 very satisfactory, hardly any sucker being found on the trees, while a few 

 which were left, among which some Narcissi are planted, and which, of 

 course, it was impossible to do, were very badly infected. 



The varieties were 'Mr. Gladstone,' ' Ecklinville,' 'Cox's Orange 

 Pippin,' and 1 Lord Derby.' Although this was so far successful for 

 apple sucker, it was not wholly so for killing the winter spores of apple 

 scab, there being some traces of it, though not a bad attack, on the 1 Cox's 

 Orange ' and the ' Ecklinville.' It may be noted in passing that among 

 all the winter washes we tried none seemed to have much effect on this 

 scourge. 



This hot lime wash was applied early in April, as, of course, there 

 was no under crop of bush fruit in this particular orchard, otherwise 

 it would have been impossible, and it seems to me that the tenderness 

 and the liability to damage of the under fruit at the time when the 

 eggs of all the various insects are most vulnerable makes the task of 

 successful winter washing in a mixed plantation much harder than in an 

 orchard where there is no such drawback. 



This factor is constantly occurring in our work of spraying ; for 

 instance, when we wish to apply strong poison for the leaf-eating cater- 

 pillars very often there is a crop of gooseberries underneath, either just 

 ready to pick or even being gathered, and one must either abandon the 

 spraying or leave off gathering the berries for a week or two. 



* About one and a-half bushel of lime is placed in a forty-gallon cask, filled up 

 with water, allowed to boil for about ten minutes, then used. The cask is filled with 

 water again, and by the time the first lot is used the second lot is ready. 



VOL. XXXIV. 2 



