354 Report OF THE HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT OF THR 
get it repealed. So firmly convinced were they of the advan- 
tages of the prohibited way of spraying that they appealed to 
the Cornell University and New York Agricultural Experiment 
Stations, at Ithaca and Geneva, respectively, to make tests com- 
paring spraying in bloom with spraying at other times. The 
Station Directors replied that such tests could not be made 
without violating the law. The matter was then presented to 
the legislature with the result that the law was so amended as 
to permit. the experiment stations to spray trees in bloom for 
experimental purposes. We have seen no record of any sys- 
tematic tests along this line excepting the accounts of work 
on these phases of the question which relate to the poisoning 
of bees by spraying poisons on the blossoms, and to the part 
bees play in the setting of fruit. 
The problem which the stations have been asked to solve is 
not a simple one. These are some of the questions which it 
brings up: 
1. Does spraying in bloom give superior protection to the fruit 
against the attack of insects and diseases? 
2. Does it increase the yield? 
3. What is the effect on blossoms which are hit by the spray? 
4, To what extent are insects helpful in setting fruit? 
5. What is the effect on insects which visit the sprayed 
blossoms? 
The results of the investigations which were conducted in 1900 
are conclusive on some points. This is especially true of the 
laboratory tests. The field tests, however, are generally incon- 
clusive as to the practical results of spraying orchards in bloom. 
When the conditions of the season of 1900 are considered in 
relation to the points under investigation it is not surprising that 
the tests of the influence of the treatment on the yield were not 
altogether conclusive. In some seasons the conditions are very 
favorable to the development of the apple-scab fungus. There 
is reason to believe that in 1898 this fungus was quite destructive 
