458 
or the economical unit for apple production of most 
growers. The reputation of dusting lias in the past 
been the reputation of sulphur dust, and before going 
into the pros and cons of the value of sulphur dust 
it might he hosi to enumerate some of the advan¬ 
tages. questionable points and disadvantages of 
dusting. 
ADVANTAGES OF DUSTING.—1. Greater speed 
in application. "A dusting outfit is capable of treat¬ 
ing from five to ten times as much orchard as a 
spraying outtit in a given time.” 
2. More suitable timing of application. "Owing 
to the rapidity of application the grower can time 
his application to better suit the-weather and the 
stage of the fruit.” 
3. Less waste time. "Dusting operations should 
be done during weather unfit for most agricultural 
field operations, such as immediately following a 
rain, or very early in the morning, while spraying 
operations require the best of weathoi.” 
4. Lower cost of machinery. ‘ The initial cost of 
a dusting outfit is two-tliirds that of a spraying out¬ 
fit. The cost of upkeep is less, the gasoline used is 
less, and the duster is a longer-lived machine.” 
5. Lighter weight of dusting apparatus. “A dust¬ 
ing outfit with dust and operators on it does not 
weigh one-third that of a sprayer, so that a duster 
can be taken over hills and over wet ground, where 
a sprayer would mire.” 
«>. Less liability to trouble and break-down. “A 
dusting outfit in practice is a reliable machine, and 
is not responsible for delays due to leaky valves, 
blow-outs, etc., which frequently occur with high- 
power sprayers.” 
7. Simplicity and speed makes greater appeal to 
grower. "More growers will dust than will spray, 
even if the total cost is the same, because it-is less 
trouble. This is highly important, particularly in an 
orchard community, where it is desirable in the in¬ 
terests of every individual to improve the standard 
of product in the entire community. Of these advan¬ 
tages the first and the last are probably the most 
important." 
DOUBTS IN THE WAY.—1. Doubts as to the 
efficiency of dust in controlling fungus diseases. "We 
find a great amount of experimental evidence avail¬ 
able on 00-50 sulphur lead arsenate dust. It is most 
curious to timl that on averaging ,">0 experiments con¬ 
ducted in New York. Michigan, Illinois and Nova 
Scotia that the total average gives the following: 
r- IT n sprayed—, 
,—Sprayed—, 
,-Dusted-, 
T. 
. 71 
V) 
Tc 
L_ 
£— — 
C s Ol 
.S eg 
u 
w « 
— 3 
c? 
t- ™ 
w S 
il 
*- 3 
c 
>- 
V. 
z. v: 
-- © 
V. 
c 
£ X 
Cl o 
P- X 
Now York... 
4 
11 
4 3.2 
22.9 14.3 
11.4 
7.8 
63.9 
12.2 
5.0 
70.0 
Michigan .... 
4 
7 
71*4 
12.0 19.7 
20.9 
0.4 
78.4 
20.8 
0.7 
78.8 
Illinois .... 
. 4 
7 
70.4 
44.7 11.8 
19.1 
8.8 
O0.1 
19.9 
8.5 
58.(5 
Nora Scotia 
. 4 
5 
51.4 
(i.6 41.9 
12.4 
3.7 
83.1 
12.4 
2.9 
83.7 
ATcrage ... 
, 16 
30 
50.5 
21.4 22.2 
13.(1 
3.2 
71.3 
15.(5 
4.0 
74.4 
F. K. PECK. 
(Continued Next Week) 
* 
Last Seasons Insect Pests 
Part III. 
HE APPLE MAGGOT.—In the Hudson River 
Valley and in the Champlain district the apple 
maggot is one of the serious pests with which grow¬ 
ers have to contend. It is probably present in every 
county in the State in which apples are grown, but 
rarely assumes any importance in the commercial 
orchards of Western New York. It is particularly 
annoying and injurious (Fig. 105) to the man who 
has a few trees of several varieties for home use, 
and who is at a loss regarding means of controlling 
it. Field experiments, however, have demonstrated 
that the ravages of the apple maggot can be easily 
and effectively prevented by poison sprays applied 
at the proper time. The control of the insect is 
based upon the habit that the flies have of constantly 
sucking up drops of material which they find on the 
fruit and foliage. The flies appear during the latter 
part of June and the first part of July, and it is at 
this time that the spraying should he done. The 
fruit and foliage should be fairly well coated with 
a solution of arsenate of lead paste, 5 lbs., or pow¬ 
dered 2U> lbs., to 100 gals, of water. When the first 
attempt is made in an orchard to eradicate this in¬ 
sect, two applications of the poison should be made, 
the first during the last days of June or the very first 
days of July, and the second about two weeks 
thereafter. All trees on the farm, especially those 
about the house and barn, should be sprayed to 
prevent the maggot from breeding undisturbed on 
these trees. 
THE PEAR SLUG.—The pear slug, a common pest 
on pears and cherries, and sometimes on the plum, 
became abundant and destructive in 1919, in one 
case almost defoliating five acres of cherries. Dur¬ 
ing 1920 it was again injurious, but not so serious as 
iu the former season. It is liable to continue its rav- 
•D>t RURAL NEW-YORKER 
ages next year to even a greater degree than in 1919. 
The adult insect is a black, glossy sawfly, looking 
much like a wasp. It deposits its white eggs in the 
leaves of the cherries and pears, and these hatch 
into slimy, green larvae commonly known as "slugs” 
because they resemble somewhat the small slielless 
snails that we often see crawling about on wet side¬ 
walks or beneath damp hoards. The pear slug eats 
off the upper epidermis of the leaf, leaving nothing 
but a network of veins (Fig. 193). The affected 
leaves dry, curl, turn brown, and eventually fall 
from the tree. There are two broods here in the 
North, the first appearing in late May and early 
June, and the second in late July and early August. 
The pear slug is easily controlled by spraying with 
arsenate of lead, 5 lbs. of paste, to 100 gals, of 
water, or of lime-sulphur. The application to the 
pear may he made as soon as the slugs are seen. In 
case of the cherry, the first generation of slugs may 
he present while the fruit is ripening. In this event 
the spraying will have to be delayed until the second 
generation appears. 
Work of llie Pear Slug. Fig. 193 
THE PEAR THE I PS.—The pear thrips is a com¬ 
paratively new pest in the East, although it has been 
destructive in California for some years. Previous 
to 1920 the pear thrips had confined its serious work 
as a pest to pears to rather restricted localities iu 
Curculio Work on Cherries. Fig. lO.'i 
the Hudson River Valley. This past season, how¬ 
ever, it suddenly appeared in destructive numbers in 
another part of the State. The chances are it will 
increase and extend its range of destructiveness and 
growers may well be on *the lookout for it at any 
time in pear plantings. The characteristic work of 
the insects in destroying the buds is shown in Fig. 
199. It must be borne in mind that the thrips are 
very small, only about l/20th of an inch long, while 
Hie young ones are even smaller. The adult insects 
are brownish in color, while the young are whitish 
Apple Maggot Damage. Fig. 195 
h 
and wing ;s. The most effective method of control 
is to spray the infested trees just as the buds are 
opening at the tips with Black-leaf-40, three-fourths 
of a pint to 100 gals, of water, with at least 5 lbs. 
of soap dissolved and added to the mixture. The 
liquid should be applied with high pressure and 
forced into the opening buds. A second application 
March 10, 1021 
should be made within two or three days after the 
first, or about as soon as the first spraying is com¬ 
pleted. A third application may be necessary in 
extreme infestations. 
THE PLUM CURCULIO.—For the past few sea¬ 
sons the plum curculio has been gaining in numbers 
apparently and its ravages have become more evi¬ 
dent in apple, peach, cherry and plum orchards. 
Many punctured apples and peaches fall to the 
ground, and in the case of the former fruit if the 
apples remain on the trees they are apt to become 
knotty and marked with shield-shaped russeted 
scars (Fig. 200). The presence of curculio may 
be known by the crescent-shaped mark which it 
makes on the side of the fruit (Fig. 194). It is un¬ 
doubtedly a fact that the curculio is most abundant 
in those orchards that are neglected, in those that are 
carelessly sprayed and those that are bordered by 
hedge rows, woods, vine-covered stone walls and the 
like. One of the first steps, then, to be taken in con¬ 
trolling the ravages of this insect is to prune out 
unnecessary growth and dead wood, clean up the 
neglected borders of the orchard, and practice clean 
culture of the plantings. The next step is thorough 
spraying with arsenate of lead, 'the curculio eats 
little of the surface of the apple, and consequently 
gets small quantities of the poison. Special efforts 
must therefore he made to produce a fine misty spray 
in order to coat the foliage and fruit with a continu¬ 
ous layer of the poison, so that the insect can no¬ 
where find an unpoisoned spot. Arsenate of lead at 
the rate of 5 lbs. of the paste, or 2lbs. of the pow¬ 
dered. should be applied certainly at the calyx spray 
and at the second codling moth spray three or four 
weeks later. In badly infested planting it would 
probably pay the grower to add arsenate of lead to 
the pink spray just before the blossoms open. 
GLENN W. IIKRBICK. 
Chemicals and Clover Once More 
I was much interested in the recent discussion in The 
It. N.-Y. concerning the improvement of soil by aban¬ 
doning dairying and plowing under green crops with 
chemicals. I think it is a well-known fact that the 
dairy cow is the most economical producer of food ex¬ 
tant and that dairying aud dairy products are of the 
greatest importance, not only to agriculture, but to the 
consumer as well. This being true, I wonder if there 
could not be a profitable compromise effected between 
the present system of dairying and the system of soil 
improvement, as suggested in The R. N.-Y.; something 
like this: 
Suppose a man had a farm of 100 acres of tillable 
land, devoted to dairying (the pasture being permanent 
as it is on most Eastern hill farms). He could practice 
a rotation of corn, oats and grass, seeding the ground 
to clover and Timothy with the oats. Ho could plow 
approximately 30 acres a year, 15 acres of sod to be 
planted to corn and 15 acres of stubble (which had been 
planted to corn the previous year) to be sown to oats 
and seeded. Both the corn and the oats should be well 
fertilized with a good, complete fertilizer, preferably 
home-mixed. The manure from the stock could he 
stored in a covered manure shed, with tight floor and 
walls. It, of course, should be balanced up with acid 
phosphate, and applied to the new seeding after the 
oats have been harvested. Thus the entire farm would 
be thoroughly tilled, fertilized, seeded and manured 
every six or seven years. All plowing should be done 
in the Spring, so as to conserve plant food and allow 
the use of a cover crop, such as rye, vetch and clover, 
or something suitable for the locality, to be sown in the 
corn and plowed under the following Spring for oats. 
An application of lime might help at. this point. 
Oneida Co., X. Y. W. J. R. 
HERE are many combinations of live stock and 
chemicals which may be worked out in practice. 
No one doubts the great value of the cow aud her 
products. At present there seems to be a surplus 
of milk, and this is responsible for the price which 
dairymen receive. Much of this surplus is due to 
the fact that some dairymen are producing milk at 
a loss. They or their farms are unfitted for dairy 
ing. In many cases they would be better off to get 
rid of their cows and grow crops with fertilizer 
and green crops—besides benefiting other dairymen 
by relieving the milk situation. That is surely what 
will happen in the future. Some years ago The 
R. N.-Y. printed an article on "Chemicals and 
Clover,” in which we described a system of farming 
employed on certain farms in Central New Jersey. 
These farms followed a five-year rotation of corn, 
potatoes, wheat and two years of clover and grass. 
The potatoes following the corn are heavily fertil¬ 
ized. and wheat and grass are seeded after the po¬ 
tato crop is dug. All the year’s accumulation of 
manure is hauled out on the two-year-old sod and 
plowed under for corn, and a cover crop is seeded at 
the last cultivation, to be plowed under for potatoes. 
At first these farms were run on fertilizers, with 
only the manure from the work horses. That meant 
a waste of cornstalks, while clover hay brought a 
low price. So a small herd of cows was introduced 
—enough animals to consume the cornstalks and the 
clover, and utilize the wheat straw. This gave more 
manure, an increased income and provided Winter 
work. This combination of fertilizers and cows 
works well, and there are others easily \.T>rked out. 
