48 



CURRANT. 



[1900 



Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, for April, 1900, No. 9, p. 67. This 

 is accompauied by some well-based observations as to the difficulties 

 attending broadscale application of the plan, which (that is, possibility 

 of application "to bushes in a plantation") is what we really need. 

 And also, as is noticed, we need more details ; as, for instance, in 

 connection with effects of fumigation on eggs of the mite, which we 

 know to be present more or less throughout the year. 



The commonplace remedies, or rather attempts at remedies, of this 

 severe pest to Black Currant growers have been so very often entered 

 on that it would be undesirable to enter on them again here ; but, so 

 far as I may venture to express an opinion, it seems to me that, where 

 Black Currants are fjroini tor/ether in large areas, which render observa- 

 tion and immediate removal of the very first presence of the mite-galls 

 impossible, the most practically useful way of checking spread of the 

 mischief (insufficient as it is) is breaking off and destroying the mite- 

 galls. We know exactly what the cost of this is (at so much a bushel), 

 and this plan, poorly as it meets the trouble, must still demonstrably 

 to some degree lessen the amount, and it has the advantage of not 

 wholly sacrificing the crop of the year. 



In garden treatment, when a bush or two in an otherwise un- 

 infested plot are found to be infested, it is best at once to remove the 

 plants and destroy them. 



White Woolly Currant Scale. Puh-inaria ribcsice, Signoret. 



PcLViNARiA EiBESi-E. — 1, female and woolly egg-sac, magnified (natural size 

 given at p. 50) ; la, female Scale, magnified, with line giving natural length; 

 2, larva, magnified. 



The White Woolly Currant Scale has not been noticed as present 

 to any amount worth reporting since 1889, the year in which its pre- 

 sence was first scientifically recorded in this country, until the past 

 season. Specimens of the infestation forwarded in that year were sub- 

 mitted to Mr. J. W. Douglas to obtain certain identification, and 

 were stated by him to be Puh-inaria ribesice, Signoret, a species found 

 on Red Currant bushes in France, and which he had long expected 

 to hear inhabited Britain, but until that time had not seen it. 



