BROWN ROT 171 



In addition to this active work of control it is well to keep 

 the trees in only moderate growth. Withhold nitrogenous fer- 

 tilizers and cultivation, perhaps seed down the orchard and do 

 not prune heavily in winter. 



DISEASES OF THE STONE FRUITS 



Brown Rot. This attacks practically all of the stone fruits 

 but especially the plum and peach. It is most conspicuous on 

 the fruit, causing it to turn brown and shrivel and eventually 

 to dry up. The fruit also becomes covered, as the decay ad- 

 vances, with a powdery material, the spores of the disease. 

 Fruit in clusters is especially liable to attack, and thinning 

 should be practised so that no two fruits may touch. The 

 disease may also attack the blossoms and even the spurs, fol- 

 lowing down from the fruit or blossoms. Damp and warm 

 weather is especially favorable to its spread and the rapidity 

 with which it works when the trees are not carefully sprayed 

 and when all the conditions are favorable for the disease is 

 something alarming. It passes the winter largely in the mum- 

 mied fruits which frequently remain hanging to the trees until 

 the following season. 



Efforts to control the disease should be along two lines. In 

 the first place all of these mummied fruits should be destroyed 

 if possible. They may be shaken off the trees and then either 

 gathered up and destroyed or else buried or plowed under. 

 The second line of attack is by spraying. The trees should be 

 given a thorough spraying with lime-sulfur, at the winter 

 strength, applied shortly before the buds swell in the spring. 

 Strong copper sulfate solution is satisfactory, if more con- 

 venient, and may be used if there is no San Jose scale in the 

 orchard. Then the trees should be sprayed later with self- 

 boiled lime-sulfur. When a bad attack is feared, three applica- 

 tions should be made: The first perhaps three or four weeks 

 after the blossoms fall, again two or three weeks later, and a 

 third time two or three weeks after this. Under less serious 

 conditions one spraying may be all that is needed and this 

 should be probably six weeks to two months after blossoming. 



