238 THE CHIEF SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL CROPS 



trouble at the South. It attacks the fruits just as 

 they are beginning to ripen, causing them to become 

 discolored and often somewhat swollen. The dis- 

 eased fruits are covered with pimple-like pustules, 

 as in the black rot; but unlike those attacked by 

 that disease, they do not dry down and persist, but 

 soon soften and fall from the cluster. The disease 

 often develops after the fruit is picked and while 

 on its way to market ; baskets of grapes that seem 

 perfectly sound when packed, opening up forty-eight 

 hours later in a worthless, unsalable condition. 

 From the berries the fungus soon invades the stems 

 of the cluster. Instead of remaining limber and 

 pliable, as in healthy clusters, such infected stems 

 dry down hard and brittle, so that even the sound 

 berries are easily jarred off, and the clusters, when 

 they reach market, cannot be handled without shat- 

 tering. It is this shattering that has given South- 

 ern grapes so poor a reputation in the markets 

 and has done more than anything else to make 

 the industry unprofitable. Spraying with Bordeaux 

 is not admissible for some weeks before the ripen- 

 ing of the fruit, since it stains the clusters and 

 makes them unfit for use. It therefore cannot be 

 used as a remedy for this disease. The ammonia- 

 cal solution of copper carbonate may be substi- 

 tuted for it with some success, but it by no means 

 fully prevents the trouble. Training on a horizon- 

 tal trellis so that the fruit is protected from the 

 sun and dew by the foliage gives more relief than 

 anything else, but no really successful treatment 

 for controlling this disease has yet been devised, es- 



