228 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



the well-directed toil that works from the soil the means to procure 

 the essentials of life, its luxuries and embellishments shall also be 

 applied more generally, not only in planting flowers, fruit and or- 

 namental trees, shrubbery and a vegetable garden, but caring 

 yearly for each with that watchfulness and zeal that will secure 

 satisfactory results, and make a homestead in the country what it 

 should be — a place indicative of comfort, culture and refinement, 

 a place where kindred can revel in enjoyment and on which a 

 passing stranger can look with admiration. 



EUST OR MILDEW, ITS EFFECT ON" FRUIT AND 



GRAIN. 



By Geo. P. Peffek, Pewaukee. 



This is a subject in which we are all more or less interested, for 

 our crops of fruit, grain, and even grapes, are exposed to injury 

 from its* attacks. On account of this general interest, I would 

 present here a few facts in relation to it, mainly the result of my 

 observations the past season. In the first place, what is it ? I 

 would briefly answer, that it is a fungoid growth, a development 

 of masses of spores, springing from and feeding upon decaying 

 vegetable tissues. We see that this growth or development in- 

 creases in rapidity, as decay is accelerated by a high temperature 

 and a humid condition of the atmosphere. This decaying sub- 

 stance is to rust, what the soil is to seeds and roots, the source 

 from which it draws its nourishment, its vitality. 



The past season has been a remarkable one in our state for the 

 abundant crop of fruit raised ; all admit that it was the finest crop 

 of fruit ever seen in Wisconsin. The crop was not only large, 

 but for the most part fair in quality and perfect in form, but there 

 were many orchards where the fruit (apples especially) and the 

 leaves had dark, rusty looking patches or specks on them. In 

 some instances whole orchards were affected the same; in others 

 part of the varieties were affected and others not, and again the 

 same varieties were not always affected alike in all parts of the 

 same orchard. This shows that the cause is not wholly in 

 the variety, though some kinds are doubtless more subject to it 



