A Valuable Winter Wash for Fruit Trees.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 3904, 30 May 1899, Page 4

A Valuable Winter Wash for Fruit Trees.

For cleansing the stems and branohes of all kinds of fruit trees from parasitic incrustations, scale, and the eggs of rarious insects, rniioh experience has proved the efficacy and safety of a canstio alkali solution, nf which the following is the original formula: For making a small quantity, dissolve half a ponnd of causlio soda in a gallon of water, then add half a ponnd of commercial potash (pearlash), stir well, then mix both to make five gallons of solution for use. Apply to large stems with a brush, to small branches and branchlets in the form of spray, either with a knapsack pump, or other appliance, when the trees are dormant. The formula was given to Mr J. Wright a few years ago by Mr Leonard Coates, a large peach grower and nurseryman in California, and published in the Journal of Horticulture. This led to experimental trials on different kinds of trees in England, and these proving completely satisfactory, the wash became extensively and systematically used by those fruit growers who had thus proved its efficacy. It was, and is still, regularly used in Californian peach orohards as the beet of all applications for destroying scale, which is there much more persistent in the attacks than in Britain ; indeed, Mr Coates remarked that he should find it extremely difficult to grow peaches with any approach to satisfaction without spraying the trees with this caustic solution every year as regularly as they are pruned. It is applied at a temperature of about 120 degrees, Fahr., and has been so used to apple, pear, plum, and, in fact, all kinds of fruit trees in English gardens, as well aB to the vines under glass, but it has since been found effective when applied in a cold state. The superintendent of the Boyal Horticultural Society’s gardens at Chiswick was one of the firßt gardeners to use this wash extensively in England, and be attributes to it not a little of his remarkable success in growing fruit for Mr Lee Campbell at Glewston Court, Boss. He found this wash, applied in the form of spray not only destroyed scale and polished the stems of the trees, but in the course of a year or two the red spider and all kinds of insects vanished, the result, he concluded, and doubtless with accuracy, of destroying their wggs Mr S. T. Wright has since proved at Chiswick that the wash will destroy red spider, and at the same time its non-injurious character to the stems of vines and trees to which it is applied. The small pest, yet great enemy, had taken possession of some vines in one of the houseß just as these were starting into growth in the spring. Though the vines had pushed growths about half an inch long, and the sap conse quently become active, the bold step was promptly taken to brush the canes thoroughly (not the young growths) with the caustic solution, foroing it into the fissures of the bark. Not the slightest injury was done to the vines, while the spider was completely destroyed, and the house has been free from the pest ever since. Other testimony of the value of the caustic wash on fruit trees is recorded by Mr H. H. Coußins, M.A., of the South-eastern Agricultural College, Wye, Kent, in his excellent little shilling primer, the “ Chemistry of the Garden ” (Macmillan). The trees there referred to have been seen both before they underwent the cleansing process and since. A worse case of insect-infested and moss-encrusted branches could not easily be imagined, nor a better cure, for all animal and vegetable parasites had been swept away. Mr Cousins reduces the pearl, ash somewhat and adds soft soap. This is probably a good addition, but the wash is no better for the reduction of pearlash, and probably not so good for destroying the eggs of insects. It is something to know, however, that it is not absolutely necessary to incur the trouble of heating the mixture to render it effective, as though the heating might be easily done in some cases, in others it might be inconvenient. In the case of possibly immature peach wood, it might be prudent to increase the water from five to eight gallons, and note the effect before using the full strength solution.