QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 125 



781. Q. What is the best spraying apparatus? Spraying 

 A. We decline to take sides on this question. Many are the best, if the '^pp**"**'*^' 



manufacturers are to be believed. That one is good which throws the 

 liquid to a distance and with force and well subdivided. Spraying to do 

 any good must not be done in a hurry, but done efficiently. It must be 

 done at the right time, and the mixture correctly prepared and continually 

 kept in agitation, that the parts may be kept in a perfect uniformity of 

 suspension or admixture. The aim in spraying should be to cover every 

 leaf with minute particles of the fungicide or insecticide, dropped on 

 them so lightly as to remain and dry there, leaving the destructive prin- 

 ciple behind. If put on in large drops it runs off and no practical results 

 are attained. 



782. Q. What is celery blight ? Celery 

 A. Different developments of fungi, generally contracted in the seed BUght. 



bed ; consequently the seed beds should be sprayed with Bordeaux mix- 

 ture and the field plants also, but not when approaching maturity, as that 

 might be dangerous to consumers. It is difficult when the plants are 

 large to treat them, as the blight or rot affects the centre of the plants. 

 Less blight occurs when the celery is bleached between boards than when 

 bleached by banking in earth. 



788. Q. What is the disease or rust occurring on beans and known as Bean 

 anthracnose ? Anthracnose. 



A. It is a parasitic fungus attacking any part of the tissues of the root, 

 stem, leaves or pods of either bush or pole beans. It appears in the 

 forms of ulcers, or sunken black and rusty spots, and is very contagious, a 

 diseased pod or leaf quickly inoculating another. For instance, a basket 

 of green pods, some diseased, others healthy, may in twenty-four hours, 

 by contagion, all become diseased during the period of transportation. 

 The disease can be transferred from place to place by a hoe or other im- 

 plement. Wet weather is particularly favorable to the spread of this dis- 

 ease. Soaking the seed beans in fungicides fails to do much good — better 

 results are attained by a weak solution of Bordeaux mixture applied to 

 the plants every ten days. Too m«ch Bordeaux mixture dwarfs the bean 

 plants, or any other plant. 



784. Q. Is the anthracnose the only disease affecting beans? Bean 



A. No ; there are several others, prominent among which is a bacterial ■^^*^^^*^°°^* 

 disease known as the bean blight, under which the foliage becomes 

 yellow, spotted and soon dead. Another, known as the bean rust, is 

 the outward sign of an attack of fungi which develops inside of the tis- 

 sues of the leaf, and breaks out in the form of a discharge of rusty spores 

 all capable of reproduction. Bordeaux mixture is the most satisfactory 

 remedy to keep these in check. It will not stop them from originating. 

 The scientific men have accomplished much in ferreting out the character 

 of these diseases and are diligently endeavoring to find preventives, but 

 nothing yet has been found which might be termed dead sure to stop 



