V 
iTirriv 
Vol. LXX. No. 4102. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 10, 1911. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
DEVELOPMENT OF APPLE GROWING. 
Virginia Coming to the Front. 
During the past few years Virginia apple growers 
have made rapid advancement. Not only have these 
growers learned how to produce good fruit, but they 
are also learning how to cooperate and get together 
for selling. A leading fruit man from the Pacific 
coast told us recently that Western men considered 
the Virginia growers most likely to get together for 
cooperative work. Some of the Virginia apple 
orchards are conducted on a large scale. The picture 
here shown is of an orchard in Albemarle Co. Mr. 
J. J. Boaz thus describes it: 
The picture, Fig. 231, shows my three gasoline 
power sprayers, spraying for the Codling moth in my 
barrels this Fall. We are now suffering from a 
severe drought; have not had any rain to amount to 
anything in this month (May 19). But most of my 
orchards have been well disked and planted in peas 
and have not suffered much from drought. 
Albemarle Co., Va. j. j. boaz. 
SPRAYING BY GRAVITY. 
Not long since I was looking over a large apple 
orchard of some 500 acres in Patrick County, Vir¬ 
ginia. The trees were young and just beginning to 
bear, and spraying for Codling moth has become 
necessary. The location is at the foot of a spur of 
the Blue Ridge, and the land is rolling but not steep, 
except in a few places. There are numerous springs 
and brooks flowing from them. One of these brooks 
is so much fall to the lower parts of the orchard 
that the hydraulic pressure will be tremendous, but it 
can be controlled. Experience will soon teach the 
operators how to do this, and how to regulate the 
supply. A home telephone service can be installed 
to serve in case of need to communicate between the 
different places. When the spraying is done the pipes 
can be cleaned out by turning on pure water. There 
might be some danger of poisoning from the spray 
mixtures, in case the water was drank before the 
pipes had been well cleansed. Plowever, there are so 
many springs on the property that it would not be 
difficult to use them entirely for drinking purposes. 
I do not claim that this idea is original only with 
me, for since I have seen this orchard and talked 
about the great opportunity for spraying by gravity 
. i 
m 7- • . V — 
SPRAYING FOR CODLING WORM IN A VIRGINIA ORCFIARD—HOMEMADE WATER TANK. Fig. 231. 
20-year-old Albemarle Pippin orchard. You will also 
see a homemade tank, made out of 20 locust posts, 
eight inches in diameter, mortised together, eight feet 
eight inches long; 16 feet of two-inch chestnut plank 
spiked on the inside of these posts. The inside 
measure of this tank is 15 feet long, eight feet wide, 
and six feet deep. It holds 8,000 gallons of water, 
and is filled by a mountain spring by gravity. The 
spray tanks are filled from this tank by plug in bottom 
and with lj^-inch rubber hose attached. A 200-gallon 
spray tank is filled in five minutes. I have four of 
these tanks in my orchards. They cost me about $30 
cash. They have doubly paid for themselves in one 
season. I used tons of sulphur and the same 
quantity of lime in my Winter spray, in spraying my 
orchards of 14,000 trees. I believe in the home-boiled, 
using 20 pounds sulphur, 20 pounds lime to the 50 
gallons of water. I have prospects for the largest 
crop of apples I ever had. I am counting on 10,000 
that rises in the mountain spur and above the highest 
part of the orchard, has been utilized by building a 
reservoir near its source and laying a very complete 
system of pipes from it to every part of the tract. 
There are over five miles of piping, and there are 
spigots every 2000 feet, where water can be drawn. 
This was intended for use in case of severe droughts, 
and for spraying or any other use for which water 
may be needed. 
This water system led me to a new thought, for 
the source is so high that there is a good pressure all 
over the orchard. It seems to be perfectly adapted 
to use for spraying the trees without the need of 
machinery of any kind. All that is needed is to haul 
the chemicals to the reservoir, where the necessary 
arrangements can be easily made for preparing the 
mixtures with the water at command and at the proper 
times turn them into the pipes. With a hose 100 feet 
long every tree can be reached from the spigots. There 
power I have heard of another such plant that has 
brought about the same idea, and there may be still 
others. But I have never heard of any spraying hav¬ 
ing been done by gravity power directly from the 
source of the water supply. I think it will be entirely 
practical, and certainly very cheap where there is suffi¬ 
cient fall and a constant and abundant water supply. 
It would solve the spraying problem on very, steep 
land, where machines cannot be easily used. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
HOW TO HANDLE LOT MANURE. 
In answer to W. E. D.’s inquiry on page 602, would 
say that we here are confronted with the same manure 
conditions as stated by him, viz., soft wet land in 
early Spring, or by the time the land is dry enough 
grass is too large to apply to meadows, which is also 
the only available place to apply. This year I am 
trying out the following plan: Draw out all manure 
