248 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



INSECTS AND DISEASES OF THE PEACH AND PLUM. 



The intelligent and skillful commercial grower of these fruits is 

 Mest by a large number of insect friends — blest and friends, because, if 

 not for them, so many persons would engage in the business, and the 

 crops would be so large, that the price at which they would sell would not 

 pay for their cultivation. Under the present conditions, the number of 

 growers is kept within bounds, and fair prices can be obtained, but even 

 • now the man who makes use of the remedies at his disposal in a rational 

 manner will have large and perfect fruit, in years when his less intelligent 

 or less industrious neighbor may have lost his entire crop, or will have 

 inferior specimens that will be a drug in the market, even in a year of 

 scarcity and of high prices. The fact that many of our insecticides and 

 fungicides can be used in combination greatly simplifies and reduces the 

 expense of preparation and application. 



Every grower who expects to secure a crop of plums takes some means 

 to destroy the curculio, and the day is not far distant when every successful 

 peach- and plum-grower, to say nothing of the growers of other kinds of 

 fruit, will make as free use of his spray pump for the application of 

 insecticides and fungicides, as he now does of his curculio sheet. Their 

 use is rapidly increasing, and last year the amount of copper sulphate sold 

 in the state of Michigan for use in fungicides was not less than five tons. 



Tn addition to the remedies given, too much stress can not be placed 

 upon the importance of securing vigorous trees, by use of proper soil and 

 a suitable location, an abundance of mineral fertilizers, and, above all, 

 thorough cultivation. Clean cultivation not only aids the trees in their 

 growth, but it breaks up the hiding places of insects. Untidy fence-rows 

 are favorite breeding places for insects, and should not be tolerated. In 

 the following pages will be found formulae for some of the standard 

 insecticides and fungicides, and descriptions and life histories of some of 

 the more injurious /?'2e«ds. 



FUNGICIDES. 



In Bulletins 59, 83, and 92, formulae have been given for many of the 

 more useful fungicides, but as they may not be at hand we repeat several 

 that will be found valuable. 



Bordeaux Mixture. — Slake two pounds of stone lime, and dissolve two 

 pounds of copper sulphate in a wooden or earthen vessel, pour together 

 and dilute so as to make from twenty to forty gallons as desired. Care 

 should be taken to properly slake the lime, as injury to the foliage may 

 otherwise result. A small amount of hot water may be used, or if cold 

 water is employed it should be added only as fast as the lime will take it 

 up. Air-slaked lime may be used, but the amount should be increased 

 one half. To make sure that all of the free acid of the copper sulphate has 

 been neutralized by the lime, after they have been poured together, and 

 been thoroughly stirred, add a few drops of ferro-cyanide of potassium, 

 and if it gives a brown color it indicates that more lime is needed, and it 

 should be added until no effect can be produced by the ferro-cyanide. 

 When that condition can be secured it shows that the free acid has been 

 taken up, and that there will be no danger from using the mixture 

 properly diluted upon any foliage. Of the various strengths for this mix- 



