CURRANT MITE. 149 
noticed about fifteen years, but now it is very much more prevalent, 
and threatens to destroy the Black Currant crop in this vicinity.” 
Severe complaints were made from elsewhere in England and Scot- 
land, but no remedial measures were known of. 
The following year gave the same results; bad mischief, but no 
known means of remedy, with the information from Ohrdruf (see 
p. 144) that Red Currants were not exempt from the infestation ; and 
in 1889 still no advance was made in checking the attack. 
In 1891, Mr. C. D. Wise, Manager of the Toddington Fruit- 
grounds, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, sent me the first observation 
of endeavouring to lessen amount of infestation by clearing the galled 
bud growths, which were in such quantities that he wrote on the 16th 
of April he was sorry to say the women had to pick basketfuls. 
In 1892, as well as in the preceding year, 1 had some remarks 
regarding co-tenants in the galls, of various larve; but as it does not 
seem feasible to utilize the services of those which are or may be 
destructive to the Phytopti, it does not seem worth while to do more 
here than refer to the circumstance being entered on. But in the 
same year Mr. John Biggs, of Laxton, Howden, East Yorkshire, 
mentioned, on April 10th, some degree of success from the following 
treatment :— 
‘You will, I am sure, be interested in knowing that I have to a 
certain extent prevented the Phytoptus utterly ruining my Black 
Currant trees. As you suggested in a letter of last March, we syringed 
the bushes twice with the solution of Paris-green, which I procured 
from Messrs. Blundell, and gave the soil all under the bushes a good 
coating of caustic hme. I also gave the bushes another dressing of 
the Paris-green. Just when the buds appeared this spring, I had a 
boy gathering all the little knobs of the trees. The result has proved 
as satisfactory as I could expect, considering the condition of the 
trees last year, and I have every prospect of securing a good half crop. 
Our neighbours’ trees in this village are utterly ruined, scarcely a 
leaf to be seen this year, and the trees completely covered with the 
infested knobs.”’ 
In this year Mr. C. D. Wise, of Toddington, wrote further with 
regard to effect of removal of the bud galls (mentioned above) that 
‘they had certainly decreased the trouble by picking off the buds.” 
In 1893, Mr. John Speir, Newton Farm, Newton, near Glasgow, 
made some report of experiment begun on a few bushes in 1891, which 
consisted in cutting back the stems of the bushes which were very 
badly attacked to within two or three inches of the ground (the 
branches being carefully gathered and burnt). A mixture of soft-soap 
dissolved in hot water to which paraffin oil was added, and stirred so 
as to make it combine, was diluted to a safe strength with cold water, 
