'«44 



HOKTICULTURE 



April 23, 1910 



FUNGI. 



Few persons realize to what extent 

 fungous troubles are robbing the fruit 

 grower and farmer of the profits of 

 his labor. The potato harvest Is cut 

 half in two if not protected, and some- 

 times entirely ruined. The fruit har- 

 vested is lacking in size, color and 

 smoothness. Consequently, apples of 

 excellent flavor are sold to the cider 

 mill, while apples that in quality are 

 not fit for the cider mill command 

 fancy prices because of their hand- 

 some appearance. Can we get this 

 handsome appearance on eastern- 

 grown fruit? I have no hesitation in 

 answering, "Yes." Experiments made 

 In the East- this past summer warrant 

 my saying so. 



I had the privilege of attending the 

 "National Apple Show at Spokane, 

 Wash., last November, which was un- 

 doubtedly the greatest exhibition of 

 beautiful apples that the world has 

 ■ever seen. It had on exhibition some 

 New York and West Virginia apples, 

 which were as highly colored as the 

 same varieties grown in Washington 

 and Oregon — just as smooth and per- 

 fect, and compared favorably in size. 

 Many people suppose that there are 

 certain climatic conditions in the West 

 Ihat are especially favorable to fruit. 

 This is partly true. Climatic condi- 

 tions were more favorable in the East 

 thirty years ago than today. The in- 

 crease in insect and fungous diseases 

 has been discouraging to the most en- 

 thusiastic fruit growers, and many 

 'have fallen by the wayside. All of the 

 newer fruit sections are freer from 

 those drawbacks, but time will more or 

 less equalize these conditions. The 

 ■ever Increasing demand for quality 

 fruit and vegetables is calling for 

 beauty as well as flavor, and fungous 

 diseases do more than anything else 

 to rob fruit of its lustre and bloom so 

 pleasing to the eye. and for which the 

 public are paying a disproportionately 

 high price. 



Fungi, in plain English, is one of the 

 lowest groups of plant life, and those 

 we have to deal with mostly on fruit 

 and vegetables are pa:-asites (micro- 

 scopic in size), some of which attack 

 cuts or wounds such as are made by 

 insects, or bruises from careless hand- 

 ling or packing; yet other forms of 

 fungi will attack healthy plant life, 

 boring their way through the healthy 

 tissues. Heat and moisture are very 

 favorable to their growth and spread, 

 yet some forms are more abundant in 

 cool seasons. It will thus be seen that 

 fungi are of innumerable forms, at- 

 tacking when and where least expected. 

 This makes it a most dangerous ene- 

 my. It is like combatting a contagious 

 disease which we cannot see and know 

 it only by results. 



But the grower need not be discour- 

 aged, for an immense amount of work 

 has been and is being done along these 

 lines by our National and State Gov- 

 ernments, as well as chemists connect- 

 ed with commercial houses, and the 

 experiments made in this past year 

 have been exceedingly gratifying. You 

 will appreciate the difficulty when you 

 understand that fungus is one plant 

 growing on another, and a remedy 

 must be found that will kill one with- 

 out injury to the other. This has been 

 the difficulty with the old Bordeaux 

 mixture, that in killing the fungi, the 

 little plant cells on both leaf and fruit 

 .are often injured. 



Scientists have long believed that 

 some form of sulphur other than the 

 copper sulphate would destroy fungi 

 without injury to the fruit and vege- 

 table. This past season experiments 

 were made with self-boiled lime sul- 

 phur, commercial lime sulphur, iron 

 sulphate, "sultocide," etc. The last 

 named, which made an excellent rec- 

 ord in the experiments of last year, 

 contains actually between 29 and 30 

 per cent, of sulphur in solution, ad- 

 mitting of a great dilution; and In 

 every instance where tried as a substi- 

 tute for Bordeaux mixture, it has far 

 surpassed it in effectiveness with no 

 injury. Whether it can be used on 

 peach and plum will be a matter of fu- 

 ture experiment, but the fact that with 

 less trouble and expense it can be used 

 where Bordeaux has been the only 

 remedy is very encouraging and makes 

 it worthy of a trial. 



B. G. PRATT. 



GATHERING LADYBUGS. 



The fable of the mouse which saved 

 the life of the lion has its parallel in 

 the ladybug and the rancher in Cali- 

 fornia. For years untold the children 

 have been singing — 

 "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home," 

 and the ladybirds have lifted their lit- 

 tle red wing-cases and flown away ac- 

 cordingly. Now the fruit growers and 

 farmers of California are menaced by 

 a thousand insect enemies, and their 

 most able defender appears to be the 

 little ladybird, or ladybug. Early in 

 the history of domestic parasitism in 

 California the ladybug's fight against 

 aphides was conducted almost exclu- 

 sively in the melon patches. Now, 

 however, it has been found that the 

 little soldiers are capable of protect- 

 ing many branches of the agricultural 

 and horticultural industrys, and so the 

 little redcoats are being enlisted, or 

 drafted, in numbers exceeding the 

 czar's and kaiser's armies combined. 



This year the prune men of northern 

 California have made requisition upon 

 the state insectary for bugs, while the 

 applegrowers of the foot-hills have al- 

 so asked protection. It is the cabbage 

 growers of the Imperial 'Valley, in the 

 hot southern region of the state, that 

 make the greatest demand for lady- 

 bugs. 'Very soon, too, the grain grow- 

 ers of the Sacramento 'Valley will be 

 asking protection against aphis that 

 threatens the destruction of their 

 crops, and then will come the gar- 

 deners and the fruit men, all asking 

 tor ladybugs. 



For weeks past agents of the state 

 horticultural commission have been at 

 work in the mountain canyons gather- 

 ing the ladybugs. While being pre- 

 pared for shipment, the bugs are 

 handled like so much grain. They are 

 scooped into measures, thrown into a 

 chute, and finally on a bed of excel- 

 sior in great boxes that look like arm 

 cases. Here they are kept at a low 

 temperature so that they will remain 

 dormant until called out for active 

 duty. Each crate contains from 50,000 

 to CO. 000 of these militant patrons of 

 husbandry, enough, when they begin 

 breeding, to protect twenty acres of 

 garden or orchard against the attacks 

 of the aphis. No charge is made for 

 the redcoats, but the state insectary 

 uses its judgment to place the insect 

 fighters where they will do the most 

 good. The ladybugs themselves are 



beyond price, for it is scarcely too 

 much to say that without them the 

 horticulture and agriculture of Cali- 

 fornia, now valued at millions, would 

 be a failure, and the state would be a 

 desert. — John T- Braiiihall, in The Coun- 

 try Gentleman' 



THE ELM LEAF BEETLE. 



The following notes are being distributed 

 hy Nursery Inspector A. B. Stene of the 

 nhode Island State Board of Agriculture, 

 as part of the campaign which the Board 

 hopes to wage against the elm beetle this 

 spring and summer. 



Among the insects which these warm 

 spring days are calling into activity 

 is the elm leaf beetle, and since a lit- 

 tle effort now may reduce the numbers 

 of this pest quite materially, a few sug- 

 gestions in regard to the methods of 

 checking it should not be amiss. 



The beetle winters over in the Imago 

 or so-called "adult" form, and since it 

 is not so hardy as some of our native 

 species and does not know how to 

 burrow in the ground, it seeks pro- 

 tection from the vicissitudes of winter 

 weather in all kinds of protected 

 places, but most frequently, perhaps, 

 in sheds, barns, belfreys and attics, 

 and sometimes even in the living 

 rooms of houses. The warm spring 

 weather brings these beetles into 

 activity and they seek exit through 

 windows and other well-lighted open- 

 ings. As a result, the housekeeper 

 frequently finds on the inside of the 

 windows, little, dingy-looking, black 

 and yellow striped beetles about a 

 quarter of an inch long, which should 

 by all means be captured and de- 

 stroyed. 



An easy way to destroy these 

 beetles is to sweep them into a tin can 

 or cup In which there is a little water 

 and a tablespoonful of kerosene. A 

 bath in the film of kerosene which 

 will form on the surface of the water 

 will destroy the ambitions of the most 

 hopeful beetle. 



When the foliage of the elms ap- 

 pears, beetles which have successfully 

 passed the winter and the house- 

 keepers' vigilance will begin to feed, 

 and little round holes in the leaves 

 will show as evidence of their activity. 

 They feed for some time before be- 

 ginning to lay eggs, and an early 

 spraying with lead arsenate is, there- 

 fore, advisable. If the beetles can be 

 destroyed before eggs are laid, future 

 trouble from the larvae, which are 

 really the more destructive as well as 

 the more difficult to spray for of the 

 two forms, can be avoided. 



The beetle is quite resistant to poi- 

 son and a solution containing one 

 pound of a good quality of lead arsen- 

 ate to ten gallons of water should be 

 used. 



Thoroughness in spraying is essen- 

 tial. Each female beetle which fails to 

 get a sufficient dose of poison will lay 

 from 400 to 600 eggs, and if only a 

 few of the beetles escape, the number 

 of the resulting larvae will be sufficient 

 to cause considerable injury to the 

 trees. Care must therefore be taken 

 to cover the foliage at the tops of the 

 trees as well as in the lower part of 

 the crowns. Since the beetles eat en- 

 tirely through the leaf and the larvae 

 feed only on the under surface, cover- 

 ing the underside of the leaf with the 

 solution is the more effective spraying, 

 since it will catch both the beetles and 

 any larvae which may subsequently ap- 

 pear. 



