NEW PRACTICE. 263 



now world renowned as Bordeaux mixture. No one would 

 have imagined consequences so far reaching from the appli- 

 cation of means so simple. It not only saved a few clusters 

 of grapes from the fingers of thieves : it healed the vines of 

 their deadly diseases, it saved the grape-growing industry 

 of France from extinction, and within a period of two years 

 re-established it upon its former basis of prosperity. 



Upon the arrival here of the news of the Bordeaux mixture 

 and its remedial power upon the diseases of the vine there 

 sprang up in this country one of the most remarkable series of 

 experiments ever witnessed in the agricultural world. Pro- 

 gressive farmers became interested and tested out the effi- 

 cacy of the new preparation, not only upon the grape, but 

 upon other vines as well. The Agricultural Department of 

 the General Government entered into the movement with a 

 breadth and vigor for which no one may withhold his ad- 

 miration who reads the story. The preparation was found 

 to be efficacious, not only for those diseases for which it had 

 been applied in France, but for many of the fungous and 

 other afflictions of the plant world. Some plants, as the po- 

 tato, for example, were found to thrive better after applica- 

 tions of the mixture, even where no disease had manifested 

 itself, than when the substance was not applied. By the addi- 

 tion of an arsenical element it became not only a fungicide, 

 but an insecticide. And thus it was that within the short 

 space of about fifteen years the method of treating the diseases 

 and pests of plants underwent an absolute revolution. The 

 new century opened with the new practice practically universal 

 in this country. When the conservative character of our 

 farming population is taken into consideration, the millions 

 of individuals who had to be convinced, and the tens of 



