New York AcricutruraL Experiment Srarion. 359 
was no two trees of a variety in bearing. At the first spraying 
one side of some of the trees were left without spray, but they 
were so small that it proved impracticable and they were after- 
ward sprayed. The first spraying was done on May fifteenth. 
At this time not all of the petals had fallen. Rain fell on the 
nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first and twenty-fourth of the month, 
in all about .5 of an inch. The spraying was repeated on the 
twenty-fifth, ten days after the first application. Rain fell again 
on the twenty-seventh and thirty-first of May and on the first, 
fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth of 
June, the aggregate being 4.44 inches. 
On the thirteenth of June the trees were sprayed for the third 
and last time. Rain again fell on the fifteenth, sixteenth, 
seventeenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, twenty-sixth and twenty- 
seventh of the month. Total for nine days 3.42, making a sum | 
total of 8.36 inches from the time of the first spraying until the 
last of June, at such intervals as to destroy almost wholly the 
‘beneficial effects of the spray. As a result, almost the entire 
~ crop was lost, but two varieties, Shropshire Damson and 
Lombard, maturing a crop sufficient to be gathered, and a large 
number of fruits on these varieties were stung and fell off. The 
large number of fruits set rendered it impossible for the entire 
crop to be destroyed. If all the varieties in the orchard had set 
fruit equal to the two mentioned, a fair crop would have been 
obtained. This explains in a measure the fact that plum orchards 
sometimes bear large crops of fruit, greater often than is 
consistent with the future utility of the trees, without any 
precautions whatever having been taken for the destruction of 
insects. 
From this experiment it seems unsafe to depend on spraying 
alone as a means of destroying the curculio in a season of 
excessive rainfall as it is impossible to keep poison on the fruit 
or leaves a sufficient length of time to be of appreciable benefit, 
and it would seem wise to combine spraying and jarring except 
-in very dry seasons, until some better way can be devised for 
ridding the orchards of this pest. We would not, however, be 
understood as attempting to refute any of the experiments made 
by others, or the results of tests reported by other workers. 
Without doubt, from the array of evidence recorded as to the 
beneficial results obtained by scientific workers in this field, great 
