1899] CURRANT GALL MITE. 45 



would travel along the ground, as their peculiar long, narrow, cylin- 

 drical shape, with their two pairs of legs appended at one extremity, 

 appears entirely to unfit them for this kind of progression. 



We still, so far as 'preventive measures are concerned, remain where 

 we were, and breaking off the galled buds and destroying them appears 

 to be about the only practically available method ; but the observations 

 detailed above show still more plainly than before that where Black 

 Currants are grown in large areas (or even in large plots) near to each 

 other, it must be with an appreciable addition of cost at so much per 

 measure for clearing galls, if the plants are to be kept even moderately 

 free. 



Another observation which we made to some small extent was with 

 regard to whether Currant plants which were known never, or never 

 during the years under which they have been under observation, to be 

 infested in their own place of growth would remain "mite-free" when 

 transplanted to an infested ground. With this view some seedling 

 plants from the plot in my own garden, which, as mentioned at p. 42, 

 was noticeably free from Phytoptus presence, were removed to the 

 Ridgmont grounds, and there all of them became infested. Also some 

 plants moved from the garden of Mr. Spencer Pickering, at Harpenden, 

 which is clean from infestation, became infested when moved to the 

 Ridgmont grounds. 



The life-history of this attack and the various attempts to cope 

 with it, and everything that we are acquainted with bearing on the 

 infestation, has been entered on in my Annual Reports from that for 

 1885, inclusive, up to date, with the exception of those for 1886, 1890, 

 1895, and 1896, and especially entered on at great length, with notes 

 of the first records of observation of it in England in my Annual 

 Report for 1897, pp. 141-158 ; therefore I only now give the above 

 additional observations, and this more particularly as I believe that at 

 no distant date a detailed account will be prepared of the careful ex- 

 periments which have been carried on at the Experimental Fruit Farm 

 at Ridgmont. 



