May, 1891. 
ORCHARD 
GARDEN 
89 
Orchard Notings. 
FUNGICIDES AND INSECTICIDES. 
Regarding both these remedies, I would 
rather escape the necessity of their Use by 
a proper selection of varieties, than to en- 
counter the difficulties attending them. 
While I am willing to allow that under 
favorable conditions we can destroy the 
newly-hatched codlin worm by arsenical 
poison, I find a decided objection to its use 
in a cultivated orchard. This objection is 
strongest when market-garden crops are 
grown between the trees; but with any 
crop the driving over it, and the trampling 
of teams and of men in the process, several 
times repeated, is very injurious, aud at the 
same time risky. No one would like to say 
to his customers that his string beans, let- 
tuce, spinach, cabbage, or green peas had 
been repeatedly sprinkled with arsenical 
$ liquids, however dilute. The chemists may 
tell us there is little danger to be appre- 
hended; but notwithstanding mathemati- 
cal estimates, and experiments with horses 
or cows. I had myself just as lief not have 
my salads peppered in that way. As to the 
Bordeaux mixture it is also objectionable 
because it covers and adheres to ground 
crops as well as the fruit, and is still found 
there at gathering time, even when used 
but once; while experience shows me that 
to be of much use it must be applied at 
least three times. The eau celeste has not 
this drawback, and if, as it seems, it is 
equally good, the Bordeaux fluid might 
better be applied as a preservative to the 
orchard fences. But let us see if we can- 
nor, bv a careful choice of varieties, escape 
all need of such applications, at least in the 
orchards yet to be planted. 
MICE IN THE ORCHARDS. 
At this time, (early April), we in the cold 
north are just getting a chance to see what 
V the busy mouse has been doing to make 
business for the coining tree pedlar. In 
many orchards I have ridden past in the 
last few days I have noticed the young 
trees stripped of bark as far up as the snow 
gave shelter to the pesky little rodents. 
Trees neaiest to the fences, where the snow 
drifts lay deep, are those which have suf- 
fered worst; but even where thi winds left 
no more than a few inches of snow, a de- 
corticated ring is pretty sure to appear. A 
sure preventive which I haye employed for 
twenty years is to tie strip lath about the 
stems in the fall. I see tarred paper often 
advised, but its black color “draws the 
heat" of the sun, and often does as much 
harm as the mice. Two brisk boys can tie 
on the lath to several hundred trees in a 
day. October is the besttime to do the work. 
If orchard fences are dispensed with where 
they cause drifts, four feet lath, cut in the 
middle, is long enough. Of course they 
protect no higher than they go. Treading 
the snow is often advised; and for a few 
trees, well watched, it is enough. But in 
our long snowy winters far more work and 
a careful watch are needed, and the secur- 
ity is not so great as with the lath. The 
lower ends of the strips are pressed slightly 
into the ground, and a single turn of cotton 
twine secures them. For larger trees old 
flour barrel staves answer the same pur- 
pose. Waste strips of veneer are also used. 
THE CODLIN MOTH. 
Some writer, or speaker, in New York 
state, is quoted as saying that Maine has an 
advantage in apple growing, because while 
in New York there are three broods of this 
insect in a season, in Maine there is only 
one. I am inclined to look upon this belief 
as an error. In Vermont we have several 
broods; in adjoining parts of Canada there 
are no less; and there can hardly be a doubt 
that the case is the same in Maine. Either 
the moth or the worm has decided prefer- 
ences as to the variety which it attacks, 
and this is a thing decidedly worth consid- 
ering in the choice of varieties. The selec- 
tion of sorts which the worm molests but 
little, if they are at the same time other- 
wise desirable, may mark the difference be- 
tween profit or no profit on the crop. It is 
the same with reference to fungoid spot- 
ting and cracking. No matter how good 
and handsome an apple may be when free 
from spot, if it is habitually subject to it 
little profit can be expected from its cul- 
ture. I notice that as regards both of these 
evils, adaptation to climate and soil make a 
vast difference. McIntosh Red and Fam- 
euse spot distinctively with me; while a 
little further south they are much fairer. 
The more experience I have the more I am 
convinced that there is no use in fooling 
with the “almost hardy” apples, where the 
winter temperature is ever very low down 
in the minus 30’s. The apples which are 
subject to severe spotting seem to be gen- 
erally liked by the codlin insect, and the 
same is true with the tender kinds. None 
of the non-spotting iron-clad apples have 
ever suffered much in my orchards from 
these evils.— T. H. Hoskins. 
Winter Apples in California. 
A correspondent asks, “Can good winter 
apples be grown profitably in any part of 
California?” Yes, good winter apples can 
he grown in many places here; and in some 
places with great profit. For instance, in 
some parts of this. Sonoma county, thirty- 
five miles directly north of San Francisco, 
and from four to fifteen miles west and 
northwest of this city, Petaluma, there is a 
great scope of country with the best soil 
and climate for winter apples I have seen 
anywhere. And it is a fact that more big 
round dollars could be, and are, taken from 
an acre in bearing winter apple orchard, 
than from an acre anywhere in this state, 
or elsewhere, I think, of any fruit. Good 
Newtown Pippin apples are selling at whole- 
sale to-day in San Francisco for .$2.50 per 
bushel, and at about the same rate last 
March and the March before, and with a 
great demand. I have seen 150 trees of 
Esopus Spitzenburg within eight miles of 
where I write, that averaged fifteen bush- 
els of select apples to the trees, which sold 
in the open market from $1.50 to $1.75 per 
bushel, the trees growing 20 feet apart and 
108 to the acre. Gravenstein’s have done 
very nearly as well, selling at $1.25 per 
bushel. 
The apples there have never failed to 
produce a fair crop every year since the 
first tree fruited in the county. The soil is 
a fine, light, rich, sandy loam, easily tilled. 
Climate very healthy, cool in summer, 
warm in winter. If I was young, with 
means, I would plant about four varieties 
of apples in that location in preference to 
any investment I know of. An apple or- 
chard there, rightly trained, pruned and 
cared for, is the best investment a man can 
make in orcharding in this state or in any 
other; and an apple orchard there, or any- 
where else in this state, wrongly pruned 
and cared for, is about the poorest property 
to own. The apple, and all other fruits, 
or nearly all, do as well as anywhere in 
this state, and are grown without irriga- 
tion. 
The apple does fairly well all along the 
coast, back from five to fifteen miles from 
the ocean; also high up on the mountains 
above the winter snow line. Summer ap- 
ples do fairly well nearly everywhere, and 
are wonderfully fine. Freight rates cut a 
prominent figure in apple profits. Here 
our freights are a little less than the usual, 
we having tide water. No need to talk 
about oranges and raisins, when one can 
grow Yellow Newtown Pippins and Esopus 
Spitzenburgs.— D. B. Wier, Sonoma Co., 
California. 
The Shiawassie Beauty Apple. 
In regard to the merits of Shiawassie 
Beauty as fruited at Abbotsford, Prov. 
Quebec, allow me to quote the opinion of 
the late Charles Gibb as given in the Report 
of the Montreal Horticultural Society, 1886- 
7, page 94: “Shiawassie Beauty— C. Gibb. 
In Michigan this is reported favorably. I 
find the tree fairly hardy and it is rather a 
young bearer, but the fruit is so spotted 
that it is worthless.” This statement had 
not come under my notice when I last 
wrote you. The fruit somewhat resembles 
Fameuse, but is readily distinguished by 
color of skin and form. I merely spoke of 
this in connection with locality and soil as 
well as culture — tinder different conditions 
it may have value. — John Craig. Ottawa, 
Can. 
Spray the Fruit Trees. 
To destroy the larva of the codling moth, 
the canker worm and the curculio, use one 
pound of London purple to 200 gallons of 
water, or a smaller quantity in like propor- 
tion. For the larva of the codling moth 
spray the trees about the time the blossoms 
are falling. Repeat in ten days or two 
weeks. Paris green may be used instead of 
London purple in the same proportions. 
If used upon peach trees, not more than 
eight ounces of the arsenite to 200 gallons 
of water should be used, as the foliage is 
more susceptible to injury from the treat- 
ment than that of other fruit trees. 
