The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1903-11-28
The Cooling Moth and Spraying.
(By Prof. Fabian Garcia. of the Agri
cultural College of New Msxico.)
Continued from Yesterday
Aouu RI Eiob& the Moth
How to Fight the Moth.

have been many schemes devised for
killing the apple pest, and as yet
none are considered of any consid-
cradle value, except spraying. Much
has been said or written about catch
ing the moth by a light. or setting
out bats for it. such as sweetened
water, and honey, etc. Occasionally
a few moths have been caught by
these bats. but most of the reported
captures of this insect in large num-
bers by these means are the results
of mistaken identity. AS for the
moth being attracted by a light there
is nothing in that. Many experiments
have beer tried along this line by
such careful observers as Riley and
Cook, and their reports show the
impIacticability of trying to check
the pests in his way. Two years ago
| tried a lantern that was sent to
the station for trial, as being the
finest kind of a moth catcher. During
the test there "a a large number
of moths caught, but no codling moth
While. spraying is not an absolute
cur IL he codling moth, it greatly
reduces sthe percentage of wormy ap-
pies, and seems to be the best and
most economical way of fighting the
pest.
Spraying has become an important
horticultural operation throughout
the country. The apple growers in
most otherstates realize hat in order
to compete on the market with good
sound apples they must spray, 9th
erwise a large part of the fruit will
be wormy and unfit to go to the /
market.
In New Mexico the subject OF
spraying has received little or no at-i
t~ention, and in some parts it has
ever been condemned as being of no
value.
When to Spray.
When to spray and how often we
should spray is probably the most
important point about this operation
and the one that the apple growers
most wish to know about. But on the
other hand, as yet, it is n of the
most difficult questions to answer
for New Mexico, on account of the
many and somewhat irregular broods
that we have of the moth. OF course
for the eastern and northern states
where they have but two broods, and
rs per cent of the insects enter the
fruit through the calyX, it has become
a well established rule to spray only
twice. This commonly accepted 10
ton for eastern conditions is well
expressed by Mr.. Lodeman, perhaps
the best authority on spraying when
he says, THE falling of the apple
blossoms is the signal for the use
of arsenites in the destruction of
the codling moth" This eastern rule
of only making two early applications
of the spraying has not given salts
factory results at the experiment sta
ton.
AS previously remarked, many OF
Il6 OICHdIu ISlS dlOIS III IN NloAluS L
valley, for a long time had no faith
in psraying. This came abou from
the poor results they had attained
from spraying. To a great extent
these poor results may be from fol-
lowing the eastern rule for spray
ing. Two years ago the experiment
station took up the question of spray
and a series of experiments were
conducted.
The following summary of the re-
suits of the spraying experiments
will give an idea of the value OF
spraying in this region. In the first
place it was found that there was a
large number of windfalls and that
an exceedingly large per cent OF
these were wormy. Indeed, it is sur
prisfng how many of the apples that
all are stung by worms. The pro-
portion of windfalls on the unspray-
ed trees, as a rule, was larger than
on the sprayed, and over 80 per cent
of them were wormy. The trees re-
ceiving the largest number of spray
ings show, as a rule. the largest per
cent of sound fruit among the wind
falls. 1t was also seen that on the
whole, a small percentage of wind
falls were stung through the calyx.
Most of the worms entered the fruit
from the side.
This cod1ino moth nartialIy DESTROY
ed from IS to 95 per cent of the total
crop of apples produced by the I'M
sprayed winter trees. while the
sprayed winter trees showed practi-
cally 35 to rs per cent of sound fruit
produced. In the case of a small