Jdne, 5 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



835 



sucker, and the . long time before the tree 

 comes into bearing, the plant has been ne- 

 glected. By new methods of cultivation 

 trees may begin to bear ' in three to five 

 years from the bud or graft,' and the fruit 

 is capable of much improvement and very 

 likely vs^ill equal the Japanese sorts which 

 are considered choice delicacies by many. 



Under methods of propagation it is stated 

 that, like the apple and many other stand- 

 ard fruits, the persimmon does not come 

 true by seed, and therefore a variety needs 

 to be continued by the ordinary methods, 

 namely, by budding or grafting either of 

 the stem or root. A plate is given show- 

 ing a ' top- worked ' old tree, and by graft- 

 ing the comparatively worthless tree was 

 made to bear a fine variety of persimmon. 



When we bear in mind the revolution in 

 grape culture in this countiy due to thor- 

 ough work upon our native members of the 

 genus Vitis, any similar study of another 

 fruit group is welcome, fraught as it is with 

 the possibility of adding a new fruit of no 

 doubtful merit to our lengthening list. 



PLUM- LEAF SPOT. 



The camera and photo-engraving process 

 are doing wonders for the Experiment Sta- 

 tion bulletins. Number 98 of the New 

 (Geneva) Station comes to us this week 

 with five full-page process plates upon the 

 plum-leaf spot. The results of a compara- 

 tive study of the value of Bordeaux mixture 

 and Eau celeste soap mixture are given. 

 The Bordeaux is preferable and the first 

 spraying should be made soon after the 

 bloom falls. The same treatment also les- 

 sens the attack of fruit rot. The reader 

 needs to see the plates to be impressed with 

 the efficiency of the sprayings, for the loss 

 is reduced from 86.5 per cent, to 17 per 

 cent. 



In similar spraying for the leaf spot of 

 cherry no good results were obtained. But 

 one swallow does not make a summer and 



one trial is not sufficient to condemn any 

 spraying mixture. 



FUNGICIDES INCREASE THE GROWTH OF 

 PLANTS. 



The use of fungicides is being looked at 

 from various standpoints. Professor Gal- 

 loway and Mr. Woods in a recent report 

 from the Proceedings of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence show from experiments and a collec- 

 tion of facts that the Bordeaux mixture has 

 a marked physiological effect upon nursery 

 stock, etc. Dr. Cuboni, of Italy, found milk 

 of lime an advantage to grape vines. Dr. 

 Eumm observed that Bordeaux gave better 

 grape foliage even when no fungi were 

 present. Dr. Frank and F. Kriiger, 

 also in Germany, found that chlorophyll is 

 greater in sprayed foliage and all the vital 

 processes increased, even to a lengthening 

 of the life of the leaf. Professor Galloway 

 has demonstrated that Bordeaux when 

 added to the soil only has a stimulating ef- 

 fect upon the growth of the plants. The 

 paper concludes as follows : " Whether the 

 beneficial efiect of spraying is wholly due to 

 the presence of the mixture on the leaves, 

 as concluded by Eumm, Frank and Kriiger, 

 or whether the presence of the mixture in 

 the soil, as shown by the work of the divi- 

 sion, may not, in part at least, account for 

 the beneficial effect is still an open ques- 

 tion." 



VEGETABLE CULTURE. 



The above is the title of a small work by 

 Alexander Dean, F. E. H. S., of 136 pages, 

 with 38 illustrations fresh from the press of 

 Macmillan & Co. It covers the whole subject 

 from the treatment of the soil, its prepara- 

 tion, etc., to allotment gardening. Under 

 the latter the author writes : "The land 

 hunger of the masses seems to be fairly sat- 

 isfied where garden plots of from 20 to 40 

 rods in area are furnished, and rarely is it 

 the case that these plots are not admirably 



