Vol. LIX. No. 2632. 
NEW YORK, JULY 7, 1900. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
NOTES ON HORTICULTURAL TOPICS. 
What New York Fruit Growers are Doing. 
FRESH FROM THE FIELD—It has been my privi¬ 
lege within the last few days to visit some of the fruit¬ 
growing sections of Monroe, Orleans and Niagara 
counties on the line of the Rome, Watertown and 
Ogdensburgh Railroad. It would be difficult to give 
a satisfactory description of the magnitude of the fruit 
interests of this part of New York in a short article, 
so I shall be content to mention a few of the many 
things seen that specially interested me. 
CULTIVATION AND SPRAYING.—I do not remem- 
agitators. The effectiveness of an application of 
spraying mixture depends in no small degree on the 
fineness of the spray, and a fine spray can only be 
had where plenty of force is used. Three-eighths- 
ineh hose is also coming into use. It has been thor¬ 
oughly demonstrated that hose of this size is large 
enough to do the work, and its light weight at once 
commends it. 
ADAPTING VARIETY TO SOIL.—At one place our 
attention was called to the narrow willow-like leaves 
of the Twenty Ounce apple trees, which we were told 
was a characteristic of this variety. This subject 
came up again at the farm of A. L. Wood, Carlton 
first called to this trouble last season, when visiting 
this same section, and since that time I have noticed 
what appears to be the same condition of pear trees 
in several locations of the State. Affected trees may 
appear to be all right for a time after being planted, 
but gradually take on a stunted appearance, barely 
making enough growth to keep them alive. They 
may live for a number of years in this condition, 
though some of the affected trees die. An examina¬ 
tion of the trunks of such trees at the surface of the 
ground or just below, shows that the outer bark is 
diseased and discolored. This diseased condition ex¬ 
tends do'&n the roots, in some cases involving nearly 
GANDY STRAWBERRIES AT THEIR BEST. Fig. 150. 
her having seen but very few orchards during the trip 
that were in sod. Cultivation has certainly come to 
be the rule with successful fruit growers. Crimson 
clover does well here and is used to some extent as a 
cover crop in the orchards. The seed is sown usually 
in the early part of August, when the last cultivation 
for the season is given. Spraying has also come to 
be a regular practice with progressive fruit growers. 
Spraying outfits were to be seen at work in the or¬ 
chards on every hanu, and nearly every team that we 
met wore decorated harness. The tendency in 
spraying is toward more powerful pumps and better 
Station, when it was noticed that the leaves on his 
Twenty Ounce trees did not show this peculiarity in 
nearly so marked a degree. Mr. Wood has observed 
that the narrow leaves go with trees that are growing 
in the heavier soils, and it is also true that the Apple- 
tree canker was much more severe on the trees at the 
former place, where some of them were dying from its 
attacks. The Twenty Ounce seems to be more sus¬ 
ceptible to the attacks of the canker fungus than most 
other kinds, and the disease is specially severe in 
this lake region. 
ROOT ROT OF PEAR TREES—My attention was 
the entire root system, evidently destroying the 
fibrous root, as in the worst cases barely enough 
fibers are found to keep the tree alive. I dug up a 
standard Lawrence pear tree that had been planted 
11 years, but never made much growth, and it was 
barely six feet tall. The root system was very small, 
diseased, and nearly destitute of fibers. Mr. Potter 
states that he loses on an average 25 trees a year in 
an orchard of 800 trees, from this trouble. The cause 
of this disease is obscure, and no remedy can as yet 
be suggested. 
Do water-sprouts bear fruit? This question comes 
