H AMERICAN^ GEAPE GROWING 



some skeptics who doubt the efficacy of spraying with 

 fungicides for the purpose of combating, or rather of 

 preventing, fungous diseases, but the experience of all 

 who have used it early, carefully and persistently is 

 wholly in its favor. The strongest proof of merit is its 

 rapid and extensive spread since it was first made known 

 to the public by Commissioner Norman J. Colman, of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture. At first 

 there may have been as many as fifty persons who 

 adopted and tried it ; now the number is not less than 

 fifty thousand. No new method could make such prog- 

 ress if it did not possess genuine merit. It should be 

 borne in mind, however, that spraying with any of the 

 proved fungicides is preventive rather than remedial. 

 The work must therefore begin in time, if it is to prove 

 effective. Early applications are, besides, the most 

 economical, as it requires less of the material to reach 

 all parts of the vine when in a dormant or partly devel- 

 oped condition, than when all the foliage and fruit are 

 fully grown. One of the earliest and most successful 

 advocates and practical exponents of spraying is my 

 friend, Hermann Jaeger, of Neosho, Missouri, who had 

 given up, after long and patient trial, nearly all but the 

 ironclad varieties, Norton's and Cynthiana, when he 

 was appointed as agent of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture to conduct the exDerimental work in 

 Northwestern Missouri. His essay, read before the Mis- 

 souri Horticultural Society in December, 1892, gives his 

 experience so plainly that I cannot do better than to 

 insert it in Part II of this work, with added details of 

 his subsequent experience. He shows that greatly 

 diluted applications have been fully as efficient as the 

 stronger ones, and that the cost, aside from that for 

 labor, is thus reduced to a mere trifle in comparison 

 with the value of the vines and fruit thereby saved from 

 destruction. 



