386 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I9IO. 



lime, and at the end of thirty or forty minutes enough of the 

 reddish liquid is produced to burn peach foliage in some cases. 

 Hence the necessity for cooling the mixture as soon as the lime 

 is well slaked. The finely divided sulphur in mechanical mix- 

 ture with the lime is depended upon for the fungicidal action 

 rather than the sulphide in solution, the latter being harmful to 

 foliage except in very dilute form." 



The mixture must be strained and particular care taken to 

 wash all of the particles of sulphur through the strainer. The 

 form of strainer, with the sharply inclined bottom, described in 

 the foot-note on p. 380, is very satisfactory for this porpose. 

 Maine lime is rather slow to heat up but slakes well and thor- 

 oughly after it is once started. Therefore, when employed for 

 this purpose a few dippers of hot water may be used at first to 

 start the lime off briskly. If all hot water is used there is some 

 danger of bringing too much sulphur into solution and injury 

 tc the foliage results when applied to the more tender varieties. 

 The diluted mixture may be kept for a week or more without 

 deterioration. On account of the character of the mixture great 

 care must be taken to see that it is constantly and thoroughly 

 agitated while being applied. Otherwise much of the suspended 

 sulphur will settle to the bottom. 



Home-cooked concentrated lime-sulphur. For the average 

 farmer using only a small quantity it is probably wiser to pur- 

 chase the factory-cooked concentrated material for dilution than 

 to attempt its manufacture himself. However, in the case of 

 large orchards where the expense for the ready-made article 

 would be large or where the user has had some experience or 

 training in similar lines of work its preparation may well be 

 attempted. Before doing so it would be well to obtain and read 

 Bulletin 99 of the Pennsylvania Station, State College, Pa., and 

 Bulletin 320 of the New York Station, Geneva, N. Y. A kettle 

 or some form of cooker is necessary and, whether one prepares 

 his own concentrate or buys the ready prepared, some form of 

 specific, gravity apparatus as the Baume hydrometer for testing 

 the strength of the concentrated mixtures is essential. These 

 latter may be obtained from various dealers in scientific appa- 

 ratus. Those used by this Station were purchased of the Bausch 

 & Lomb Optical Co., Rochester, N. Y. A pamphlet describing 

 their use comes with the instruments, or may be obtained free 



