12 OCTOBER 1934, Page 15

Beneficent Sprays The discoveries of modern science are in some

measure responsible for the greater success of the orchard. For example : it was found in one orchard that the popular association of sheep and apple trees had to be temporarily abandoned. The land had been over-sheeped," and the experience is general that maladies follow the too frequent or continuous grazing of one field. Then came the date when this farmer, as others, began to spray his trees with the tar oils or tar distillates which have proved so solid a boon to fruit-growers. Just at first it was feared that these sprays would prove disastrous to the grass below the trees, for the immediate effect is apparent destruction of the green- ness. Now it is found that the grass recovers quickly, grows with superior vigour and, more than this, is cleansed of the biological plagues that were the chief enemies of the sheep. The one trouble is that the grass is sometimes too lush for the greedier sheep of the flock. They suffer like the sheep -that Gabriel Oak saved.