88 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



FIGHTING FUNGI. 



Prof. Taft: I agree with Mr. Willard, that much is gained against 

 fungous diseases by keeping the foliage healthy, and I would use ground 

 bone as a fertilizer. But we can fight plum rot with fungicides, and can 

 check leaf fungi by use of copper sulphate spray, and, earlier in the 

 season, the Bordeaux mixture. I know instances wherein the rot has thus 

 been either checked or wholly prevented. Cutting off black-knot is the 

 best thing to do, but the knots must be burned, otherwise spores will 

 spread from them. Sulphuric acid will kill the knots, but it will also kill 

 the trees. Cut them off and cover the cut with linseed oil, which will be . 

 fatal to any remaining spores. Tincture of iodine will answer the same 

 purpose. [In answer to a question from Mr. Kellogg.] Some Germans, 

 and some people in this country, have held that copper sulphate is harm- 

 ful to the roots; but I have found that, while five per cent, of it in some soil, 

 kills and three per cent, harms, one half of one per cent, has no effect. At 

 the strength the solution is ordinarily used, it would take many years to get 

 enough into the soil to do any injury. Corrosive sublimate in weak solu- 

 tion is said to prevent shothole fungus and rot of the plum. It is a good 

 insecticide also, but dangerous to have about. 



Mr. D. WooDARD: My thriftiest plum trees stand in an old barnyard, 

 and I used both copper sulphate and Bordeaux mixture, yet there is where 

 I had most rot. 



Prof. Taft: The trouble was from the manure. There was too much 

 nitrogen and so a too soft growth. 



Mr. Willard, to Mr. Morrill: No stone fruit is proof against curculio, 

 though there may be slight difference in propensity to rot. Tiiere is no 

 better method than jarring to fight the curculio— I will let my wife's 

 relatives do all the spraying of plums, for this purpose, and I will stick to 

 jarring. I run fourteen "bugging machines," and it don't cost much to 

 operate them, not more than 15 to 20 cents per tree for the season. I 

 work the machines at any hour of any day but Sunday — the Lord looks 

 after the curculio on Sunday. 



Mr, Stearns: The jarring process often results in injury to trees from 

 blows by mallets. 



Mr. Willard: I have no such trouble. I use a crutch-shape tool and 

 push the tree sharply, not strike it. I would have the trees headed as low 

 as can be and yet get to them for "bugging." I would have the branches 

 not higher than three feet from the ground. I roll the ground before 

 "bugging," so as to have less trouble in wheeling the machines from tree 

 to tree. 



