152 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
thoroughly when we do spray than do 
others who spray oftener. (2.) 
(2) Soluble sulphur I seldom use unless I hap¬ 
pen to need a sulphur spray at the same time as 
an oil spray and this does not prove often. In 
my own experience it does not begin to be as ef¬ 
fective in the control of rust mites as is lime- 
sulphur solution. 
I invariably make the oil spraying in 
the fall, although if feasible I like to wait 
until the fruit is picked. Of course, if 
the fruit is badly sooted an earlier spray¬ 
ing is necessary. The spring application 
depends upon my need. I have been at 
outs with the spring application, especial¬ 
ly on grapefruit, because I have gener¬ 
ally gotten oil spotting or shadowing of 
the fruit and sometimes permanent in¬ 
jury in the form of burns. I have tried 
different insecticides but with no dif¬ 
ferent results in this respect. Often, when 
just the right time comes to spray for 
whitr-fly, the fruit is pretty small, and 
these considerations have led*me to omit 
the May spraying unless fly or scale is 
prevalent enough to make its application 
imperative. This past year, however, the 
use of a very weak Bordeaux in the oil 
spray, and in hard water, that is, at the. 
rate of not over one-half pound of blue- 
stone and lime each, to fifty gallons 
of water enabled me to make this 
spraying without producing so much 
as one oil spot on the fruit that I could 
discover. And I am perfectly satisfied 
that the result was due to the addition of 
the Bordeaux, for in a neighbor’s grove 
where our equipment was used, the same 
oil emulsion in soft water but without 
the Bordeaux produced very considerable 
oil shadowing. 
Now sometimes things come up that 
are not mentioned in the schedule. For 
instance, some three years ago I had a 
very bad infestation of Mealy Bug on 
grapefruit. Wishing to do something, 
but not knowing what, I sprayed experi¬ 
mentally with lime-sulphur and Black 
Leaf 40, lime-sulphur and nicoticide, 
whale oil soap and nicoticide, and with 
a proprietary insecticide. While all of 
these combinations appeared to have some 
effect on the old bugs, shortly afterwards 
there were great numbers of crawlers so 
that I was satisfied that my spraying had 
been ineffective. Yet, in three to four 
weeks, all of this infestation appeared to 
be dead. But I never gave spraying any 
credit for it and learned later that doubt¬ 
less fungi that attack the Mealy Bug had 
overtaken and conquered the bugs at last. 
Again, when experimenting last year 
with the Bordeaux-oil combination spray, 
I sprayed two rows through the seedling 
grove with it. The seedlings had shown 
serious ammoniation on the previous crop 
and in the fall of 1919 I had dosed the 
trees with twenty pounds of ashes and 
three pounds of Bluestone each. On the 
1920 crop a little ammoniation showed 
up in July, a little of the young fruit split 
and fell off and that was the end of it. 
But on the two rows sprayed with the 
Bordeaux-oil, although through one of 
the worst ammoniated sections, no am¬ 
moniation showed up whatever at any 
time. A similar result was obtained on 
a few pineapple trees where the fruit had 
previously persistently shown some little 
ammoniation in spite of applications of 
bluestone and of ashes. 
