October, ’24] 
HERBERT: SPRAY STIMULATION 
571 
Examples 
A good example of the latter is the Van Dorsten and Lester orchard 
near San Jose, California. They doubled the number of prunes per tree 
on the area sprayed in the spring of 1923 over the part of the orchard 
not sprayed. The prunes on the sprayed area ran ten to fifteen points 
larger, too, which would not be expected normally, for a tree with a 
larger crop usually produces smaller fruit than one with a small crop. 
One advantage of the early harvest has been noted by the Losse 
Brothers on their 150 acre apricot orchard near Sunnyvale, Calif. 
They have found by spraying half the orchard with heavy miscible oil 
that they can nearly complete harvesting their fruit on this half before 
the other is ready, thus greatly reducing their labor problem which is 
often a real factor with so large a ranch. 
Dan Regan, on the Blauer Ranch near Saratoga, California, has 
sprayed his apricot trees with heavy miscible oil for four years in succes¬ 
sion now and each year he has produced an early crop of large, clean 
fruit, which the canneries are anxious to obtain for they can dispose of 
this fruit before the bulk of the fruit throughout the Valley is ready to 
can. 
E. B. Stone has been using heavy miscible oil on his prune orchard 
near Campbell, California, for five years in succession now and he feels 
that the spray has “put the dollars on his trees” every year. These 
last two cases certainly show that the continual use of oil does not injure 
the tree or crop in any way. 
Another example of a large crop increase should be noted in the 
Rhoades Ranch near Morgan Hill, California. On the place are fifty- 
five acres of nine and ten year old prune trees which heretofore have 
never produced more than twenty-six tons of green fruit. This season, 
after its first spraying, it is estimated that the crop will consist of at 
least two hundred and twenty tons green, or approximately ten times 
greater than what it has ever produced before. Some may say this is 
because the trees are now at the right age to bear and it is true that they 
are. However, every tree on the ranch, from three to ten years old, 
that was sprayed, now has a heavy crop of large fruit, showing that age 
has very little to do with it. 
A. N. Kellner, Edenvale, sprayed his prune orchard in early 1923 and 
had a crop which averaged nine green tons per acre, while the average 
through the Valley was but one ton per acre. He sprayed part of the 
orchard again in 1924 and has a much larger crop on the part sprayed as 
compared with the unsprayed. 
