The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-24
SPRAYING PUTS MONEY
 INV GROWERS POCKET
McVay Writes On Importance Of Standardizine Names Of Plants, Flowers And Shrubs
 Fungi Relation To Plants

have talked my head off in the past twenty-five years in trying to convince people of the real money value of spraying and l have also written thousands of letters, often painstaking in detail, and while people are gradu- ally coming to understand the economi- cal value of taking care of their fruit, flowers. shrubbery, etc., there still re- main the ma jority, who will not make any effort at all.
 To illustrate. some five or six years ago mechanic in Birmingham who had saved up some money decided to go into fruit and truck farming. He bought forty acres in St. Clair county and put out splendid orchard of peaches, ap- pies and grapes, raised a few hogs and some truck. No effort was ever made to protect his fruit from insect pests and after the fruit had come to full bearing he found that he could not sell It because nearly every peach or apple had worm in it, or was otherwise damaged. His grapes went to the bad for lack of spraying, so that after five or six years he gave up in disgust and is now back on the old job in Br- mingham. It is singular thing that people will often plant valuable and expensive trees, shubbery, flowers, etc.. and then turn them over to insects and disease without any effort to conserve them.
 Standardizing Names
 If seedsmen, nurserymen and growers in general could agree on uniform name for all flowers, plants, shrubs, etc., the buying public would be great ly benefited, but this would be impos- sible to do unless they adopted the cor rect botanical name. The public would seriously object because the botanical name of perhaps more than half of them IS so utterly difficult to spell or pro- nounce that the average person could not comprehend it. Take nasturtium for example: the correct name would be 'tropelolum," and there are hun dreds far more difficult.
 The great trouble is that many of our most common plants are known under multitude of names in various sec tions of the United States, and when the buyers are going through the catalog at hand for the purpose of ordering and cannot find the plant listed, they are discouraged; yet the plant they may want may be listed, but under a name unfamiliar to them. If some one is smart enough to prevent a workable plan that all would adopt, he would be entitled to the thanks of the entire coun- try; in short, real benefactor.
 Relation Of Fungi To Plants
 The writer is often asked, What is fungus, so often used in connection with troubles affecting many plants and trees. A fungus is difficult thing to define in all of it's characteristics, but enough is said here to cover the more important facts. A fungus is really plant, but unlike Towering plants it possesses no chlorophyll, which is that mysterious green-colored protoplasm found in Towering plants, which enables such plants to change crude food into nutritive material. There are an un- known number of different fungi, and while some are harmless, a great num- Der are serious enemies of all plant life. The most dangerous fungi are those that live and feed on cultivated plants, such, for example, as scab on potatoes. Fortunately, fungi is easily destroyed, unless one permits it to re- main on his plants for a long time. It Is propagated from spores, which per- form the same office as seeds of flow ering plants, and these live spores are easily scattered about, thus spreading the disease. Any of the caustic poi sons, such as corrosive sublimate, many other caustic washes and some gases will positively destroy it. Fungi will rarely make it's Appearance where sys- tematic spraying is done.
 Q.-I have been told that I should | treat my seed Irish potatoes to prevent ]