FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
123 
past two years to ascertain whether or not 
it was possible to successfully control the 
disease by careful pruning. These exper¬ 
iments were carried out in a grove that 
had suffered severely from attacks of mel- 
anose for several seasons past. From the 
viewpoint of the experiment the condi¬ 
tions were ideal, for the trees had not been 
pruned for two years preceding the ex¬ 
periment, and there was an abundance of 
dead wood. Fifty-six trees were included 
in this experiment and they were divided 
into blocks of twelve and sixteen trees 
each. Block No. i of 12 trees was left 
unpruned as a check. Block No. 2 of 16 
trees was pruned in January and again in 
June. Block No. 3 of 16 trees in Jan¬ 
uary and block No. 4 of 12 trees in 
June. With the exception of a few trees 
in block No. 3, the pruning was done by 
ordinary day laborers under careful su¬ 
pervision, and an effort was made to re¬ 
move all visible dead wood. Some dead 
twigs were missed, but on the whole the 
pruning was rather thorough. All prim¬ 
ings were burned. 
When the fruits were picked the prod¬ 
uct from each block was carefully exam¬ 
ined and classed under the following 
grades: brights, seconds, and russets. 
These grades applied to melanose spotting 
only and no account was taken of the rus- 
seting or staining produced by other agen¬ 
cies. Under brights were classed all fruits 
entirely free or showed less than 1 per 
cent of the surface spotted. The seconds 
included all fruits showing from 1 per 
cent to 25 per cent of the surface spotted. 
Fruits showing more than 25 per cent of 
the surface spotted were classed as rus¬ 
sets. 
The result from each year’s pruning I 
will give in tabulated form showing the 
percentage of the different grades from 
each block. 
PRUNING 
IN I 913 . 
RECORD 
OF FRUIT 
Block 
No. of 
When 
Percentages 
of 
No. 
trees 
pruned 
brights seconds russets 
12 
check 
22 
74 
4 
2 
16 Jan. and June 48 
51 
1 
3 
IO' 
January 
43 
55 
2 
3* 
6 
January 
60 
39 
1 
4 
12 
June 
35 
62 
3 
PRUNING IN 1914. 
RECORD 
OF FRUIT. 
Block 
No. of 
When 
Percentages 
of 
No. 
trees 
pruned 
brights seconds 
russets 
1 
12 
check 
13 
75 
12 
2 
16 Jan. and June 40 
59 
1 
3 
8 
January 
45 
59 
1 
3* 
8 
January 
61 
38 
1 
4 
12 
June 
5i 
48 
1 
^Carefully pruned by the writer, care being 
taken to remove the smallest dead twigs. 
These results are very favorable to 
careful pruning and show a decided in¬ 
crease in bright fruit where all the dead 
wood was removed. While these experi¬ 
ments have hardly been carried through 
a sufficient period of time to draw very 
definite conclusions, the following con¬ 
clusions may be drawn from the results 
obtained. 
That careful pruning will greatly in¬ 
crease the yield of bright fruit. Even 
where the pruning was done by ordinary 
laborers, the percentage of bright fruit 
was increased from two to four-fold over 
the unpruned. 
A thorough pruning once a year will 
probably be sufficient to keep the disease 
in check. 
