200 



THE CANADIAN H0ETICULTURI8T. 



without covering. The latter, a fine 

 berry, seems to be a shy bearer. 



Our tomatoes are all rotting on the 

 crown as they ripen, although not 

 touching the ground. 



Our apple crop is very light, not one 

 in ten trees bearing any fruit. Very 

 little 



APPLE SPOT, 



but enough to show the disease, is 

 there. In regard to the hyposulphite 

 of soda, it was a bad year for experi- 

 ments, there being so little spot, but 

 twenty .trees I sprayed with it three 

 times, at the time recommended, were 

 as much spotted as those not so treated. 

 All our apples are badly worm eaten — 

 a substitute, I suppose, for the Black 

 Spot — the St. Lawrence most of all ; 

 the Fameuse seemingly the least. 1 

 did not spray any of my trees with 

 Paris Green, and would like to hear 

 how it fared with those who did. 

 Aultsville, Aug. 6, 1887. 



GRAPES AND MILDEW. 



BT G. GOTT, ARKON'A, ONT. 



Dovmy Mildew and other Fungi — 

 their treatment, &c. 



Mr. Editor, — I was exceeding well 

 pleased by the able and almost timely 

 paper of Mr. Beadle, of St. Catharines, 

 on the above subject, in your late ex- 

 cellent August issue of the Canadian 

 Horticulturist, page 170. With your 

 kind permission, I would like to add 

 a little of our practical experience and 

 observation to what that gentleman 

 has said, not so much, however, by way 

 of improvement as by way of enlarge- 

 ment. As Mr. Beadle has very pithily 

 remarked in his paper, the path of 

 jjrevention is alone the path of safety 

 in dealing with these subtile parasites 

 of the grape. After they have once 

 established a foothold, it is almost in 

 vain to attempt to treat them to effect 

 a cure. Nor is this an isolated fact, 



as it is found to be almost exactly so 

 in the respect to many personal evils 

 and evils that affect society. Preven- 

 tion is better than cure. 



OUR PRACTICE IN THE MATTER. 



Firstly we commence the season with 

 the firm belief that trouble in the way 

 of fungus growth in our grapes will 

 most surely come, and so we govern 

 ourselves accordingly. To be fore- 

 warned is to be forearmed, you know. 

 As early as we get our grapevines up 

 on the trellises, and active growth has 

 commenced in earnest, and the young 

 canes push out rapidly, we order on 

 some fifty or one hundred lbs. of 



FLOUR OF SULPHUR, 



according to the size and quantity of 

 our vines. As the young bunches 

 begin to appear, the blossoms open and 

 the calyx falls, the berry forms and 

 shows its proportion ; then, at this 

 stage of proceedings, we take our pul- 

 verized sulphur and apply it liberally, 

 at about the rate of twenty-five pounds 

 per one hundred of large vines. We 

 do so early in the stillness of the 

 beautiful dewy summer morning. When 

 the sun is fully up in brightness, and 

 shines in his intensity, our sulphur is 

 slowly but surely converted into 



SULPHURIC ACID GAS, 



that can be easily detected by our 

 senses in the vineyard, and is a deadly 

 antagonist to every form of fungoid 

 spores fioating in the air, and at that 

 very moment ready to settle and grow 

 on the grape leaf and fruit. We apply 

 by means of the hand, throwing the 

 sulphur up and in amongst the leaves 

 and fruit, where it will readily adhei'e 

 to the still dewy leaves, some fall- 

 ing to the ground, where it yet does 

 good service for us. After about two 

 or three weeks of bright weather, we 

 make another application, and the work 

 is done for the season, for our grapes 

 are sufficiently hardened to be beyond 



