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Show The Care of the Orchard e .d . ball Director Utah Experiment Oregon Short Lint DtmonJtralion Train Ltdurt Station mmmmaamcmrmiaamteatBKmuaiammKaBmmmtmmtxaaatutmmMMmmaamva There is no use planting, cultivating cultivat-ing and developing an orchard up to bearing with any expectation of making mak-ing money out of it unless you are willing to put both time and money into it after it reaches the bearing stage, and there is probably nothing in western agriculture that will pay you better for the time and money you spend than this same orchard, provided you spend enough. And at the same time there is nothing in western agriculture in which a person per-son can make as great a failure as they can in orchard work. The people peo-ple of the east with the great markets mar-kets of our country right at their doors often make a fair amount of money on orchards that receive little or no care, They raise a cheap, inferior in-ferior product, but, being close to the markets, with little or no freight charge to pay, they may be able to still dispose of it at a profit. With us of the intermountain region, the problem Js quite different. The freight on a box of apples from here to Ohio is on the average as much as the Ohio man gets for his apples. In order, or-der, therefore, that we may get anything any-thing for our product, we must put on to the eastern markets a product that is in every way superior to the home-grown product and will command com-mand a superior price. An apple grower anywhere in the state of Ohio has approximately 5000,000 people who want his apples within a radius of 100 miles. The intermountain fruit grower has on the other hand less than" 1,000,000 people to eat his apples within a radius of 500 miles, and practically all of the world markets open to his products are from 1,000 to 2,000 miles from his door, and worse than all this, those miles are in every case over the worst of mountain roads, with heavy grades and high freight charges. A box of apples selling at $1.00 may be sold at a loss. Another box of apples selling at $1.50 or $2 00, or, In the case of our fancy fruit, sometimes much more, may yield handsome returns, n it costs $1.10 to produce a box of apples that sell for $1.00 and a consequent loss, $1.20 may produce a box of apples that will sell for $2.00 and a handsome profit. Where, then, shall we spend the extra 10 cents per bushel? The first requirement of a marketable market-able apple is that it be free from worms. Two and a half to three cents, therefore, must go to spraying that box of apples and when we say spray in the western country, we mean spray thorough, persistent, intelligent in-telligent work. We have as the result re-sult of' a good many years of effort developed a method of spraying which can be depended upon to give results. The important features of ' this method are, first that you have an outfit capable of handling a considerable consider-able amount of liquid at a constant pressure of 150 to 200 pounds. The largest size of barrel pumps double acting pumps, and power outfits will do all this, and it makes no difference which one of these outfits you have. With reference to the efficiency of Bpraying, the best spraying that has ever been done in this state and as good as has ever been done in any other state has been done with a Pomona Po-mona Barrel outfit, costing $22.00, but that outfit must have one accessory acces-sory that is hard to purchase in the open market, and that is a man with a head on him to run it. There are certain accessories besides the man that box of apples, and when we say do good work 25 feet of 7-ply hose, a bamboo pole, 10 to 12 feet in length, & crook on the end of this pole, and n this a nozzle that will throw a coarse spray five or six feet before it breaks into a mist. With this outfit and a platform or tower so that the man handling the nozzle can get above the trees and spray down into the calyx cups, spray sidewise into those that stand out on the side, spray up into those that turn dowd below, taking care to see that every Blngle blossom on the tree receives Its ehare of the poison, truly efficient spraying can be done. The number of times to spray and the poison to use are questions that must be settled by local conditions. Lead arsenate at present prices, five pounds to 100 gallons, is probably as good a poison as can be used. Paris Green, one-third of a pound to a barrel, has, however, given just as good results, where there was not too much rain or dampness at spraying time. The number of sprayings depends de-pends on the number of worms the previous year. If uncertain in regard to this factor, spray twice, once just as soon as the blossoms fall from the trees, and again in ten days, or two, weeks. Band every tree with '.here appears more than two or three here apears more than two or three er cent of worms In the first brood, then spray again two or three times for the second brood. If the orchard closes the season with only two or three per cent wormy or even five pet cent, it will be fairly safe to cut the early sprayings down to one and then' watch for the movement of the worms as before to see if later sprays should be given. Don't leave this car with the idea that I have said that one spraying will control the codling moth. 1 know dozens of orchards that have not been sprayed more than once a year for four or five years, but be fore that time every one of those or chards was sprayed from three to five times and was banded, in order to get the worms down to a number where it would be safe to stop with one spraying. Any method of spraying spray-ing which reduces the number oi worms in the orchard each year below be-low that which occurred there the previous year is successful. Any method of spraying which allows the worms to increase in an orchard or which only holds tnem stationary when they are destroying from 10 to 20 per cent of the apples, is a failure as far as western conditions are concerned, con-cerned, because that 10 to 20 per cent that is destroyed will be the largest, finest, and most highly colored fruit on the tree, while the little, inferior, uncolored, nubbins that grow dowu underneath will be the ones that will be free from worms. In a good many sections in this state considerable trouble was experienced experi-enced this past season with the worms and many an orchardist that felt that he had solved the problem with spraying before this season ia alarmed at the number of worms in his crop this year, and is looking around for a reason for the increase. Most of them, however, are looking in the wrong direction for the cause. Some think the pump was no good, others are sure the poison was no good, but I have discovered no one as yet that has even suggested that the man was deteriorating, and yet the fact remains, that a very large percentage of our growers have become be-come over-confident in the past two or three years. , The codling moth runs in cycles of destructiveness as do all other insects. in-sects. Some years it will be worse a good deal worse than others. Eight or nine years ago the average of the orchards of the state was two to three worms to an apple. Two or three years ago, as the result of a cobination of almost universal spraying spray-ing and certain unfavorable climatic conditions, that number was reduced to the minimum. At the same time, the number of sprayings was also reduced, re-duced, the bands were left off, tha codling moth began to increase in numbers, and an exceptionally favorable favor-able season for their multiplication resulted in a heavy damage last year. And yet, last year there were dozens of orchards in the state of Utah that went through the season with a single spraying and one would have to search some time for a wormy apple in the orchards. I think, however, that this lesson will have a good effect ef-fect in the end better put on an extra ex-tra spray and work on the bands when they do not appear to be doing much good than to repeat the experience experi-ence of the past season. There is no profit in wormy apples, and there is no satisfaction in them either. (To be Continued) |