BLACK CUKRANT-BUD GALL. 91 



half a bushel off nearly five acres. You will see the dead branches 

 that should have borne fruit dried up. When I first discovered it (or 

 soon after), I heard that people were washing ; . . . but I could not 

 see, nor can I now see, how washing them could do any good, thoy 

 seem so completely in the bud, indeed many of the bushes look like 

 dying. I saw a neighbour some time since who said they had had 

 them more or less for five or six years, particularly on the 'Baldwins.' " 



The following notes refer to the effect of cutting-back infested 

 bushes as a means of checking the attack, and also to removal of the 

 infested buds and destroying them as a measure of preventing increase, 

 if not of getting rid of the infestation. 



On the 29th of September, Mr. John Speir, of Newton Farm, 

 Newton, near Glasgow, was good enough to favour me with the 

 following observations : — "In further reference to yours of 26th ult., 

 re Black Currant Mite [Phytoptus rihis), I have pleasure in saying that 

 from an examination of the bushes to-day, I am inclined to believe 

 that the treatment adopted has been entirely successful. I had only 

 two affected bushes to experiment on, and of course owing to the small 

 number experimented with, it would be rash to be over confident until 

 other more extended trials are made. 



" The details are as follows : — The two bushes (about ten years old), 

 and both with single stems, were affected all over, and during the 

 autumn of 1891 they were cut down to within two or three inches of 

 the ground, the branches being carefully gathered together and burned. 

 A mixture of soft-soap, half a pound, dissolved in one gallon of hot 

 water, to which two gallons of paraffin oil had been added, and well 

 stirred, and afterwards mixed with an equal quantity of cold water, was 

 syringed on to the stumps of the old bushes, the bushes round the 

 affected ones, and all the ground round about. 



" One of the bushes came away healthy and strong the following 

 spring, but the other looked very delicate for a considerable time ; 

 ultimately, however, it seemed as healthy as the other. During the 

 spring of 1893, no affected buds were noticed, neither on the bushes 

 which were cut back, nor on the others surrounding them, and this 

 year, although very much deprived of light and air by the higher 

 bushes around them, both seem in a very favourable way of making 

 good growth and healthy wood in the future. 



" I am inclined to believe that these bushes were cut back a little 

 too far, but I had had so many failures in attempting to eradicate this 

 pest in the past, that I wanted to be as sure this time as possible, well 

 knowing that if the treatment was successful other attempts could be 

 made later on with longer stems. If the stems were a few inches 

 longer, more stronger growth would come away, and the plant would 

 sooner be a bush again. As my stock of affected plants is now all 



