New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. rat 
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than that a moderate pruning of winter injured trees is much 
superior to no pruning, and in the case of trees over six or 
seven years old it means recovery where “ dehorning” would be 
fatal. . 
These results confirm the reports of observations made in the 
Michigan peach belt the season after the severe freeze of 1899.* 
By far the largest part of the injured trees were not pruned 
nor treated in any way. The conditions of these trees varied 
greatly. Many of them made a fair recovery, in some cases such 
as seemed satisfactory to the growers. But it was very apparent 
that the average conditions of unpruned trees as compared with 
those lightly pruned was that they contained a much larger 
amount of dead wood, and that the new growth seemed to be 
only at the extreme ends of the branches, which made the top of 
the tree too spreading. | 
An experiment conducted by the entomologist of this Station® 
in a peach orchard near Geneva showed a way whereby many 
thousand winter injured trees might have been saved. In an 
orchard of Fitzgerald peach trees about eight years old some 
were sprayed in November, 1903, with different kinds of sulphur 
washes, and some were left unsprayed. 
In the spring it was seen that the spray mixtures had de- 
stroyed the fruit buds, for there were no blossoms upon the trees 
that had been sprayed, and there were upon the untreated trees. 
Otherwise there was no very great difference during the spring 
in the appearance or growth of the trees. But’in July many of 
the untreated trees began to deteriorate rapidly, and by August 
many were dead and others had dropped all of their fruit and 
much of their foliage, while practically all of the sprayed trees 
remained in splendid condition and so continued during the 
growing season. 
The greatest demand upon the vitality of the tree was made 
during the warm weather of July, and this together with the 
additional demands of the developing fruit upon the untreated 
trees was too great for them to overcome with their vitality 
already depleted from the injuries of winter. 
‘Waite, M. B. Fruit Trees Frozen in 1904. U.S. Dept. of Agr. Bureau 
of Plant Industry. Bul. 51, Part III, p. 4. 
5See Bulletin 254 of this Station, page 328. 
