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FUNGI. 



BITTEE ROT IN APPLES. 



Editor Rural World: 



What is the cause of bitter rot in apples? What will prevent it? 

 I have 3,000 apple trees, mostly Ben Davis, some of them fourteen years 

 old, and bitter rot spoiled most of the apples,— John Sanders, Washington 

 County, Ark. 



Referring the foregoing to Prof. J. C. Whitten, of the Missouri 

 Experiment Station, he replies as follows: 

 Editor Rural World: 



Bitter rot is caused by a fungus, or minute parasitic plant, which 

 grows and feeds upon the apple. At the Experiment Station we have 

 been able to reduce the bitter rot one-half by spraying with Bordeaux 

 mixture. This consists of six pounds of blue vitriol, six pounds lime 

 and fifty gallons of water. Spray just before the buds open in spring, 

 just before the flowers open, just as the last petals fall, and once or twice 

 more, at intervals of ten or twelve days. Some have obtained good re- 

 sults by spraying twice just before the apples begin to ripen. If the di- 

 seased fruit is destroyed by hogs in the orchard or by gathering and 

 removing the rotten apples, there is less liability of the disease spreading 

 in the orchard. — J. C. Whitten, Horticulturist, Missouri Agricultural 

 College, Columbia, Missouri. 



THE APPLE CAOT^ER. 



Last February Mr. M. B. Waite, of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture, communicated an article to one of our exchanges calling 

 attention to an important disease of apple trees which he called canker. 

 He noted its occurrence in western ISTew York, in Pennsylvania, on the 



