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Posted on 9:05 AM by Wanto and filed under ,
By Michael Todd

The caterpillars of the winter moths, and tortrix moths, which ruin the leaves and often the blossoms in the spring, may very largely be controlled if you spray the trees properly with a good tar-oil wash, like Mortegg, in December, because at that time their eggs are on the branches of the tree.

Though it is possible to do this all round the tree in any one year it is usually considered kinder to the tree (and. incidentally to the gardener!) if a half-circle is dug out on one side of the tree one winter and the remaining half-circle dug out the following winter.

The second method is that known as 'ringing'. This consists of the removal of a ring of bark about blossom time inch wide and an inch or two below the level of the lowest branch. A sharp knife removes this ring of bark down to the wood, leaving the ring clean and tidy. The wound should be covered over afterwards with a strip of adhesive grafting tape.

By ringing, the compost fruit grower does not stop the flow of mineral sap upwards to the parts above the ring, but he does keep the elaborated sap up in the branches because this would have passed down the bark surface. By altering the ratio between the crude sap and what may be called the manufactured plant foods, you ensure that fruit buds are formed and growth restricted.

The idea is to give the grass something to bite at in the spring so as to prevent there being any danger of the trees themselves suffering from lack of nitrogen. The fruit grower will keep watching his trees during the summer and he can give extra nitrogen in the form of hoof and horn meal or dried blood if there appears to be some nitrogen deficiency.

These should be tied on to the trunk in June and should be removed each December for burning, together with the weevils which will be hiding inside them.

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