INSECTS AND OTHER PARASITES. 207 



neglected too long, the following preparation will usually 

 be found a prompt remedy : Take three pounds each of 

 flowers of sulphur and quick-lime, put together and slake 

 the lime, and add six gallons of water ; then boil all to- 

 gether until the liquid is reduced to two gallons, allow it 

 to settle until it gets clear, and bottle for use. One gill 

 only of this is to be mixed in five gallons of water, and 

 syringed over the plants in the evening, taking care not 

 to use it on the fruit when ripe, as it would communicate 

 a taste and smell which would render it useless. Applied 

 in this weak state, it does not injure the leaves, and yet 

 has the power to destroy the low form of vegetable growth 

 which we call mildew. We apply it just as we do to- 

 bacco, once or twice a week, as a preventive, and we 

 rarely have a speck of mildew. Another remedy, not 

 quite so good, but easier to get, is to mix one pound of 

 virgin sulphur with ten pounds of tobacco dust, and 

 throw this mixture with a bellows on the leaves of Grape- 

 vines or Roses outside when the dew is on, so that it shall 

 adhere ; or, if in the greenhouse, after syringing. If 

 this is done once or twice a week the mildew or aphis 

 will never get much of a foothold, the sulphur being the 

 specific against the mildew and the tobacco dust check- 

 ing the aphis. 



These remedies are such as are employed at seasons when 

 there is no artificial heat used in the greenhouse or the 

 grapery ; but when fire heat is applied to the flue, steam, or 

 hot-water pipes, then the most certain preventive of mildew 

 is to mix lime and sulphur with water to the consistency 

 of thick whitewash, and apply it to the upper surface of 

 the hot-water pipes. This can be done with perfect 

 safety to hot- water pipes, and it had better be done two 

 or three times during the winter. It can also be safely 

 applied to steam pipes heated by low pressure steam, if 

 one-fourth of the surface of the pipe only is covered. 

 With flues it should only be applied at the cold end. 



