Part 27 (1/2)

Mr. M'Clelland: This was in August.

Mr. Stakman: There was a perfect crop of new leaves?

Mr. M'Clelland: Yes, sir.

Mr. Stakman: My only suggestion would be that you used the lime-sulphur too strong. That might account for it.

Mr. Sauter: I never sprayed until this year. I tried it this year and with good results. I sprayed my apple trees at the same time, and I sprayed the plums with the same thing I sprayed the apple trees with. I had nice plums and nice apples; last year I had hardly any.

Mr. Stakman: What did you use?

Mr. Sauter: Lime-sulphur and some black leaf mixture. I used it on the plum trees and the apple trees, and afterwards I used a.r.s.enate of lead.

Mr. Stakman: You didn't get any injury to the plum trees?

Mr. Sauter: No, sir, we had nice plums.

A Member: I have seventeen plum trees, and I have only sprayed with kerosene emulsion and the second time put in some Paris green, and I have never seen any of the brown rot, but there have been a good many of the black aphids on the plum trees, on the end of the branches. I cut them off and burned them. I didn't know whether that would be the end of it or not.

Mr. Ruggles: Why don't you use ”black leaf 40,” 1/2 pint in 50 gallons of the spray liquid. It can be used in combination with a.r.s.enate of lead and lime-sulphur or a.r.s.enate of lead and Bordeaux mixture.

If you wash them with black leaf 40 it will kill all the aphids. I did that myself this summer.

A Member: Please give us a little better explanation of what black leaf 40 is.

Mr. Ruggles: It is an extract of tobacco that is for sale by wholesale drug companies and stores, or you can get it from Kentucky, from the Tobacco Products Company, at Louisville, Ky., or Gra.s.seli Chemical Co., St. Paul. I am not advertising, Mr. President, but they will send you a small package for seventy-five cents, about half a pint. Of course, that looks kind of expensive, but it will go a long way. I think possibly it is the best thing we have to combat lice.

Mr. Stakman: Plum pocket is caused by a fungus which is supposed to infect mostly when the flower buds are just beginning to swell, especially in cold, wet weather. Plum pocket causes the fruit to overgrow and destroys the pit, and big bladder or sack-like fruits are produced instead of the normal fruit. The fungus that causes it gets into the twig and is supposed to live there year after year. Therefore pathologists usually recommend cutting out and burning affected branches and even trees that bear pocketed plums several seasons in succession.

Our experiments with plum pocket have not extended far enough to enable me to say anything definite about it.

Mr. Hall: With us in western Minnesota this year this plum pocket got all the plums that the frost didn't get. If we were to cut off the twigs we would have to chop off the trees.

Mr. Stakman: When a tree becomes so badly infected that practically all of the branches produce pocketed plums year after year you can't expect very much normal fruit. Sometimes you might get some, but usually not very many.

Mr. Graves (Wisconsin): Do you use your black leaf 40 in conjunction with your Bordeaux or lime-sulphur?

Mr. Ruggles: Yes, you can.

Mr. Graves: Doesn't it counteract the result?

Mr. Ruggles: No, it does not.

Mr. Stakman: I used this year lime-sulphur and black leaf 40 together.

Mr. Graves: You say you got the same results from black leaf 40 in that mixture?

Mr. Stakman: It killed the plant lice; that is all I wanted.

Mr. Graves: We had some experiences that indicated that black leaf counteracted the other results.