982 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SPRAYING FRUIT TREES AND PACKING APPLES AS 

 PRACTISED IN CANADA. 



By Cecil H. Hooper, M.R.A.C., F.S.L, of Swanley, Kent. 

 [Delivered November 18, 1902.] 



Orchard spraying is much more practised in Canada and the United 

 States than in England. Among the reasons for this may be mentioned : 

 1st. That both insect and fungous attack, if they exist at all, appear to 

 be more destructive in America than here, and if caterpillars, when they 

 do appear, are not held in check, an orchard may in a short time be 

 skeletonised ; 2nd. That the orchards, especially in the United States, 

 are much larger than most of those in this country (for example, in 1896 

 the Hon. F. Wellhouse of Kansas, had 1,600 acres of Apple orchard, 

 ranging from two to twenty-two years old ; Mr. J. H. Hale had in Georgia 

 last year 200,000 bearing Peach trees and 50,000 Plum trees — one Peach 

 orchard is 600 acres) ; 3rd. That their orchards are not of mixed fruits, 

 but the whole is of one species. Apple trees are planted 30 to 40 feet 

 apart, so there is ample space for a horse and cart, or sloven, to be driven 

 between them. The " sloven," a low wagon having cranked axles, is 

 principally used for carrying the spray pump and, later in the year, the 

 barrels filled with apples. After about ten years' growth it is not usual 

 to grow any crop between the trees ; the land is ploughed and frequently 

 harrowed by disc, zigzag, and pulverising harrows to insure a fine tilth, 

 thereby retaining the moisture in the soil. Successful spraying needs 

 intelligence and care ; it is always done by the farmer himself, or with 

 his constant superintendence, it being considered of equal importance 

 with cultivation, manuring, and pruning. 



Some of the best spray pumps have been designed and brought to 

 perfection by fruit-growers, while the Professors of Horticulture in the 

 Agricultural Colleges (of which there is one in every State of the U.S.A. 

 and several in Canada) have experimented with insecticides and fungicides, 

 and, by free pamphlets and demonstrations in orchards, have brought 

 spraying into the important position in fruit-growing that it now holds. 



Coming now to the materials used, the insecticide most common is 

 Paris green ; it was first employed to destroy the Colorado beetle in the 

 sixties, and is still an absolutely necessary dressing in some parts of 

 the U.S.A. and Canada to insure a potato crop. In 1873, at the sugges- 

 tion of Le Baron, the State Entomologist of Illinois, Paris green was 

 used as a spray for Apple trees, to destroy the caterpillars of Canker or 

 Winter moth. Paris green is now the exterminator chiefly used to destroy 

 Winter moth, Bud moth, Pith moth, Lackey moth, Ermine moth, and any 

 other biting insect which eats foliage, flower, or fruit. 



Alkali wash is used in winter for sucking insects, such as green fly or 

 aphis, woolly aphis, mussel scale, and the hibernating caterpillars of the 

 Codlin moth, which hide in crevices of the bark ; this wash destroys eggs 



