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Show BENEFIT DERIVED FROM SPRAYING FRUIT TREES Under Averaje Conditions Fair Estimate Is About One-Fourth One-Fourth of Total Fruit Is Saved Some Statistics. The orchard owner Is chiefly interested inter-ested In the effect of spraying on the amount of picked fruit free from worms. In most cases the value of upraylng was due to reducing the amount of wormy windfalls, or, in other oth-er words, preventing worminess so that the fruit remained on the tree. On the unsprayed trees an average of 26 per cent, of the total fruit dropped as wormy, and 15.7 per cent, was wormy when picked. In the four orchards In 1908, about 28 per cent, of the total fruit was wormy drops on the unsprayed trees and five per cent, on the sprayed trees An average of all the sprayed plots Bhows that of the total crop of fruit on any tree, 4.7 per cent, drops as wormy and 4.1 per cent, is wormy t ricked. Subtracting the percentage which drops plus the percentage which is wormy when picked from 100, gives the percentage of the total crop which is picked free from worms, which Is the essential matter for the fruit grower, says a bulletin of the New Hampshire experiment station. On of that shown above, but only by taking ta-king the dropped fruit into account can a correct estimate of the value of the spraying be made. When there is an unusual amount of worminess and the best spraying, the benefit due to spraying will often amount to half of the total fruit borne by the tree, as was shown by some of our plots which in the case of a tree with tht name amount of fruit as cited above would amount to two barrels instead of one out of three picked being saved by spraying. But under average conditions, con-ditions, it seems a fair estimate thai about one-fourth of the total fruit, or one-third of the fruit actually picked is saved as perfect fruit by spraying. This is shown graphically in the accompanying ac-companying illustration. Such a statement state-ment of the benefit derived from spraying is not as striking as to say that but one apple in one hundred of those picked as wormy, but the former for-mer statement merely cl&arly states the facts and only one is a hundred of the picked apples may be wormy, and yet the real benefit from spraying may not be as great as on other trees, where a larger proportion of th HOT SPRAYED SPRAYED Z.7 WORMY-1 jNOTWOSrlY IS7. 67.yOFMY fJli(JT'w6R'rfYI97. I DROPPED 2 iw DROPPED js. Average Results In Spraying. picked fruit was wormy, but on which the spraying had prevented a large drop and thus secured a much larger crop to pick. The old saying that "noting will lie like statistics," is well exemplified in considering the benefits bene-fits of spraying as often recorded and compared. the unsprayed plots the picked fruit ' free from worms is found to average j only 43 per cent, of the total crop, j while on all sprayed plots it averages 70 per cent., a difference of 27 per cent, of the total crop. Thus a gain of about one-fourth of the crop seems to be a fair average of the actual benefit ben-efit to be derived from spraying, if we base our estimates upon the total fruit borne by the tree. This would mean that on a sprayed tree which picked three barrels of fruit, one barrels of perfect fruit, worth $1 to $1.25 net, had been gained by the spraying. ! If the difference in amount of perfect per-fect picked fruit was based on the ; picked fruit only, leaving the drops out of consideration, the benefit would appear to be only about three-fourths |
