PEARS CRACKING, SPECK. 



149 



The form now under consideration is far more disastrous to pears than to apples. 

 It is called C. dendriticum pyrinum, and shown in Fig. 41. 



Efforts must be directed to prevention. Cultural treatment with that object should 

 consist of efficient drainage, improvement of the soil's staple, and careful lifting of 

 the trees. Those liable to attacks of the fungus ought to be sprayed when the trees are 

 dry with a solution of sulphate of copper, 1 pound to 25 gallons of water, just before 

 the blossom buds commence swelling. When the trusses of bloom appear, and before 

 the flowers expand, the trees should be sprayed with Paris green, 1 pound to 260 

 gallons of water, in which enough limewash, 

 made by slaking quicklime in a tub, and 

 forming into a rather thin whitewash, has 

 been stirred to give it a slightly milky 

 appearance. If the mixture be employed 

 on apple trees it must be diluted to 320 

 gallons. The spraying should be repeated 

 as soon as the fruit is set, again a fortnight 

 afterwards, and another treatment given in 

 three weeks. Three sprayings suffice, as a 

 rule, for apples, as the fungus does not 

 attack them so early nor so malignantly as 

 it does pears. The Paris green mixture is 

 equally a preventive and curative of insect 



pests that feed On the foliage and young Fig. 41. FUNGUS (CLADOSPOBIUM DENDBITICUM: PYBINUM) 



_ .. ON PEAE LEAVES AND FRUIT. MYCELIUM AND "Fauns'' 



fv'mfQ 



OF FUNGUS ON THE EIGHT, ENLAEGED. 



Speck. Described on pages 36 38, and 



illustrated on page 37, Vol. II. Further reference to this fungus (Oidium fructigenum) 

 need only be made to its sometimes appearing after the spraying against cracking 

 has been relaxed, and to point out a method for preventing attacks. This consists in 

 spraying the trees with a minim Bordeaux mixture, made by dissolving 4 ounces of 

 copper sulphate in about 4 gallons of water in one vessel, slaking 4 ounces of freshly 

 burned lime in another, forming a thinnish limewash, then pouring it through a hair 

 sieve into the vessel containing the copper solution, mixing thoroughly, and diluting 

 to 7J gallons altogether. This and all such mixtures should be tested for free copper 

 by Dr. G. Patrigeon's method : Dissolve ounce of ferrocyanide of potassium in 2 or 3 



