> As soon as they found that fruitgrowers were beginning to spray orchards when in bloom, the bee-keepers at once became much concerned over the effect of such a practice on their business. The publications of experiment stations and of the United States Department of Agriculture assured them the bees were liable to be poisoned by working on blossoms which had been sprayed with insecticides. In New York State the bee-keepers set to work vigorously, and by 1898 secured the enactment of a law which still stands on the statute books, making it a misdemeanor to apply any poisonous substance in any way to fruit-trees in bloom. (Chap. 325, Laws of 1898.) 

> Some of the fruit-growers had by this time become so thoroughly convinced that better results could be obtained by spraying apple orchards in bloom than by spraying at any other time, that they strongly opposed the passage of the law and afterwards tried to get it repealed. Unsuccessful in this, but still confident that their views were correct, they kept at work until an amendment to the law was finally secured, whereby the experiment stations at Cornell University and at Geneva were permitted to spray plants in bloom for the purpose of testing such treatment in comparison with the treatment commonly advised. Accordingly, in 1900, work on certain phases of this subject was undertaken by both of the stations named above. The results, so far as published, are given in Bulletin 196 of the Geneva station, to which publication those who are especially interested are referred.

ABJ, January, 1902

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