PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 67 



iments would seem to demonstrate that the curl of the peach leaf may be 

 almost entirely prevented, although the cold, wet weather in which this 

 disease is most troublesome, is not favorable for the use of fungicides. 



The brown rot, which not only destroys our peaches, plums, and cher- 

 ries, but is often quite injurious to the leaves and branches of the trees, 

 can with care be kept in check; although for the same reason it, like the 

 peach leaf curl, is a difficult disease to control. To secure the best results, 

 the diseased fruits should be buried, and after giving the ground a thor- 

 ough wetting down at the time of the first application, work it with some 

 sort of drag or cultivator, to bury as many as possible of the spores. By 

 thinning the fruits so they will not touch each other, the rot can also be 

 greatly reduced, and this should at any rate be done to increase the size 

 of the remaining fruits. 



While the use of fungicides will lessen the chances of the spread of 

 black-knot, it should not be relied upon in fighting this insidious disease. 

 As soon as a knot appears it should be cut off and burned. If this is done 

 as early as May of the first season, before the greenish, velvety coat forms, 

 it will ripen no spores; while if left until the following April, two crops 

 at least will have been scattered. When upon the trunk of a tree, when 

 serious harm would be done by the cutting off of the knot, it can be 

 pared off, and, by treating the wound with tincture of iodine, the knot 

 will be destroyed. 



The fungicides may also be used for the strawberry leaf blight, which 

 is often so destructive to our best varieties. The application of Bordeaux 

 mixture to the plants in August, and again as soon as the blossoms have 

 fallen in spring, will render free from disease varieties that are very 

 subject to it. 



The scab of the apple and pear, and the leaf blights of the pear, quince, 

 and plum, can be readily controlled by spraying; but, as for the other dis- 

 eases, to be entirely successful the applications must be made at the proper 

 time. During the past winter, thousands of young plum trees died 

 because the wood was in an unripe condition, from the fact that the trees 

 dropped their leaves in July or August. Had they been sprayed, even 

 once, when the disease first appeared, they would have retained enough of 

 their leaves to go into winter quarters in good condition. 



While the loss of the apple crop in 1892 was in part due to climatic 

 conditions and other diseases (some of them, probably, bacterial), the 

 apple scab fungus appeared upon the foliage, and, where it was not severe 

 enough to cause the leaves to drop, it destroyed more or less of the tissue 

 and greatly reduced the growth of the trees. 



The grape was one of the first fruits upon which fungicides were used, 

 and the more successful growers use the spraying pump as freely as the 

 cultivator. From localities where, without its use, grapes could not be 

 grown, some of the finest fruit upon the New York market is shipped. 



As with the disease mentioned above, so with nearly all others. If 

 spraying is undertaken in time, and is properly kept up, they can be held 

 in subjection and their terrors will be lost. 



THE WHOLE MATTER DISCUSSED. 



It is not safe. Prof. Taft said, to use the arsenites or Bordeaux mixture 

 upon ripening fruits. The several strengths of the Bordeaux mixture for 



