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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