Clean Apples
Not one, but many retired officers of both the army and navy, took up fruit farming after the War ; and some of them have made fame in the new pursuit. I may perhaps be allowed to quote General Maxse and Lord Fisher. Another, who has had experience of French orchards, has been scien-_ tifically investigating the origin and cause of apple scale, a malady that vexes most orchards, especially those of the small grower, and believes that he has found the remedy. He sends me his conclusions. They are these. The home of the spores which deface the grown fruit lies chiefly in the bark of the twigs; and this fact points to the wisdom of spraying just before the buds are in any degree vulnerable. He finds that the best material for their destruction is a mixture of three pints of paraffin with eight pints of thick lubricating oil (which he obtained cheaply from the waste pot of a garage) ; but as this is rather too thick in substance for easy spraying he mixed one pint of petrol to 11 pints of the mixture. The striking success of his method is worth the close attention 'of
our research stations.
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