WINTER MEETING.
The regular Winter meeting was held in the City of Hamilton, on Wednesday, the sixth of February. The President, Rev. R. Burnet, took the chair; and after the reading of the Minutes by the Secretary, introduced to the members Mr. Craig, Secretary of the Agricultural and Arts Association, of Ontario, and Mr. J. B. Jones, delegate from the Horticultural Society of Western New York. The gentlemen were most enthusiastically welcomed by the members, and addressed the meeting in a few well-timed words of hearty interest in the object of our Association.
Mr. Chas. Arnold—our accredited delegate to the Winter meeting of the W. N. Y. Horticultural Society—read his Report of what he heard and saw on that occasion. He stated that there was an average attendance during the two days of the meeting, 23rd and 24th of January, of about one hundred and forty intelligent fruit growers from all parts of the State of New York, and adjoining States. The evening session of the 23rd was largely taken up with a discussion upon the best means of destroying the Codlin Moth. One gentleman spoke for nearly two hours, advocating the merits of his patent invention for catching the larvæ of this Moth. (Our cousins are highly gifted in the talking line, and are an exceedingly inventive people.) This invention consisted of a piece of water-proof paper or pasteboard, lined with cotton batting. This was to be placed, in the form of a band of about three inches in width around the trunk of each tree, with the cotton batting next to the tree, and occasionally taken off and the larvæ found therein destroyed. Another man had applied for a patent for substantially the same thing, only in this case the cardboard was punched full of holes, and the cotton batting pressed into the holes. It was fully admitted by all who took part in the discussion, that the Codlin Moth was a very serious pest, and that every owner of a pear or apple tree should wage a war of extermination against it. The larvæ will take refuge under anything that gives them shelter and security, hence any contrivance that offers them a hiding place will be sought by them, and can be used as a trap for catching and killing them.
A very convenient trap has been made by fastening a strip of old carpeting or of cotton flannel around the trunk of the tree, and removing it every week or ten days and passing it through an old clothes-wringer, so as to crush the larvæ that have taken refuge in it, and then putting it back around the tree. Those who desire to inform themselves more fully on the subject of the Codlin Moth, will find much valuable information in the entomological part of the Report for 1870, page 91; for 1872, page 5; for 1874, page 43; and those who have only the Report for 1877, will find the insect figured in all its stages of existence at page 46 of the entomological part.
Mr. Arnold further reported that the morning session was taken up by the reading of essays, some of them containing much valuable information. The essays were upon our public roads; gathering, marketing, and preserving apples; small fruits; spring flowering shrubs; the kitchen garden; horticultural botany; roses, and weeping or drooping trees. But few fruits were exhibited. A plate of the Columbia pear was the finest plate of Winter pears he ever saw, judging from the appearance merely, as no opportunity was given him to test their flavor.
Reports from different parts of the State shewed that an immense revenue is derived from the sale of apples. Niagara County alone reported sales amounting to three hundred thousand dollars. Other counties reported as high as five hundred thousand dollars worth of apples, besides large sums for pears and other fruits.
Mr. Arnold closed his Report by expressing the hope that the day was not far distant when reports similar to those made to the Western New York Society, will come from many counties in Ontario, where both soil and climate are certainly equal to any portion of the State of New York; and ventured the prediction that in view of our already great and yearly increasing facilities for shipping, the growing of first class fruit in Ontario must be profitable for many years to come.
The subject of fruit statistics, brought before the meeting by Mr. Arnold’s closing remarks, was briefly discussed, and Messrs. Burnet, Beadle and Bucke were appointed a Committee to interview the Government, and devise means for obtaining reliable statistics of the quantity and value of the fruits raised and exported from Ontario. A resolution was also passed requesting the railways to incorporate in their annual report on the crops, the condition and extent of the apple crop.
The discussion now turned upon the Canker Worm—an insect pest that is doing considerable damage to apple orchards in some sections. A full description of the Canker Worm, and engravings shewing the insect in all its stages, from the egg to the moth, will be found in the entomological part of the Report for 1870, at page 86; also a very full article on the Canker Worms in the same part of the Report for 1875, page 25. Mr. Bowman, of Hamilton, said that for the past two years they had stripped the leaves completely off from some two or three hundred of his apple trees—they did their work early in Spring, and disappeared about the 15th of June. He had read that syringing the trees with a mixture of Paris Green and water was complete destruction to the worms. Mr. Woolverton, of Grimsby, had suffered severely from the Canker Worms, and had tried several means of preventing their ravages. He had tied bandages around the trunks of the trees and smeared them with pitch tar, and found this a very easy and successful method of destroying the female moths. The tar must be renewed as often as it becomes hard, or the moths will crawl over it. Last year he had applied Paris Green in water with a garden engine, and found that also very beneficial. This must be done very early in the season, as soon as the buds burst, to be effectual. He had also tried fall ploughing of his orchard in the end of October, and thought this also had been beneficial, by lessening their numbers. Mr. Smith, of Glanford, suggested that a mixture of castor oil and resin,—such as is used in making the sticky fly-paper—might be found useful, though in cold winter weather it would become too hard. Molasses mixed with tar was also suggested, but rains will wash the molasses out and leave only the tar. D. W. Beadle, of St. Catharines, remarked that the use of some sticky substance, over which the wingless female moths could not crawl, would be found to be the most certain and convenient method of preventing their ravages.
P. E. Bucke, of Ottawa, read an able paper on irrigation, which was heard with marked interest and attention. This paper has been handed to the Secretary, and will appear in full in the Annual Report.
A. M. Smith, of Drummondville, called attention to the Yellows in peach trees, a disease which has been very destructive to the trees in many places, and was making its appearance in this Province. His views are given more fully in an article on this subject which will be found in this number.
The meeting proceeded to the consideration of the benefits of shelter to peach orchards, and the trees which are the best to plant for this purpose. C. M. Honsberger, of Jordan Station, had planted his peach trees between the rows of apple trees, and let them take their chances, but now, however, had been induced to plant some evergreens on the south-west side for a wind-break, and had set out a row of Norway spruce. W. Haskins, Hamilton, spoke of fifty acres of peach orchard at Navy Island in which he was interested, and said that the best trees and the best fruit were to be found in that part of the orchard that was sheltered. He was also convinced that good cultivation of the soil was just as necessary for the production of fine peaches as for anything else. A. M. Smith would protect peach orchards on the south, south-west and west. W. Holton, Hamilton, remarked that the peach orchards about Brantford seemed to thrive best on a poor soil where they were sheltered, and that in the rich hollows they did not succeed. He thought that our native arbor-vitæ, or as it is often called, white cedar, and the native white pine, and black spruce were excellent trees to plant for shelter, and easily procured. Chief Johnson, of Tuscarora, thought the sugar maple an excellent tree to plant for shelter. P. C. Dempsey, Albury, advocated planting the basswood, because it grew rapidly, afforded as good shelter as any deciduous tree, and from its blossoms the bees gather the best honey, fully equal to, if not better, than white clover honey. W. McKenzie Ross, Chatham, spoke favorably of the Scotch pine, because it was a hardy tree and rapid grower. J. Croil, Aultsville, thought that the Norway spruce was the most valuable tree for shelter belts, it being even a more rapid grower than the Scotch pine, very dense in its habit and symmetrical in form. D. W. Beadle, St. Catharines, concurred fully in this opinion; he had seen this tree planted around a large field devoted principally to a pear orchard; in a very few years it had attained to a height of ten or twelve feet, and was quite dense. He believed also that at present it was the cheapest tree that could be planted, cheaper than gathering up the white pines and spruces of our forests, for the reason that the Norway spruce having been several times transplanted, was very sure to grow, and could be bought, of small sizes, about as cheap as the cost of digging up the native trees. W. Roy, Owen Sound, spoke favorably of the Norway spruce, Austrian pine, and Scotch pine as shelter trees. J. B. Jones, Rochester, N. Y., spoke highly of the Norway spruce, saying that it was a hardy tree, easily transplanted, easily kept within any desired limits, and comparatively inexpensive. The European larch was also a graceful tree, of rapid growth, and very cheap.
On the subject of fertilizers for fruit trees, Mr. Robertson, of Oakville, said that in sandy soils he had found that the application of clay around the trees proved to be very beneficial and lasting in its effects. L. Woolverton, Grimsby, had also used clay around trees growing in sandy soil with marked benefit. P. E. Bucke, Ottawa, suggested the use of mineral phosphates, and spoke of the large beds which had been found near Ottawa, whence considerable quantities were being shipped to Europe. J. McGill, Oshawa, thought wood ashes to be one of the very best fertilizers for fruit bearing trees. C. Arnold, Paris, preferred barn-yard manure, this he considered preferable to all other fertilizers, believing it contained all that was needed both for the tree and the fruit. J. B. Jones, Rochester, N. Y., would apply lime and ashes liberally to orchards growing in heavy soils, occasionally plow under some green crop, and apply barn-yard manure. He remarked that the practice of composting barn-yard manure, and allowing it to stand some time in large heaps, where it would ferment and decay, was now believed to be erroneous, and that the best results were obtained by applying it to the land as quickly as possible, without allowing any opportunity for fermentation.
The Report of the Committee on fruits was read. This occasioned a short discussion on the value of the Ben Davis apple. W. Holton, Hamilton, remarked that he feared many planters of this variety would be disappointed in the quality of the fruit, it not being equal in this respect to many of our older sorts. The tree was hardy, and it might on that account be a valuable sort to plant where the higher flavored kinds could not be grown. P. C. Dempsey, Albury, remarked that one of his neighbors had found it a very profitable orchard variety.
The Summer meeting will be held in the city of St. Catharines, on Wednesday, July 10th, at ten o’clock A. M.
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