416 Forty-sixth Report on the State Museum 



discharge from it may be graduated to any desirable degree by mechan- 

 ism which admits of a speedy and definite compression of the end of a 

 rubber discharging tube. A single spraying early in the season with 

 this nozzle and Paris green water kept the currant bushes free from the 

 larvae for nearly the entire season, which was one of unusual abundance 

 of the worms. 



Addition of lime to the arsenites. — Quite an interesting and seemingly 

 valuable result has been obtained by Professor Gillette, in that he has 

 found that lime added to London purple or Paris green in water, greatly 

 lessens the injury that these poisons would otherwise do to foliage. 

 With this addition, it seems that they may safely be used on the most 

 tender foliage, even on the peach. On this, only one per cent of injury 

 was observed with one pound of the purple to two hundred gallons of 

 water, and only five per cent with one hundred gallons. The average 

 of several experiments with the limed arsenical mixture on cherry, 

 apple, plum, and peach, with one pound of the purple to one hundred 

 gallons of water, was the trifling amount of one per cent. It would 

 seem, therefore, to be a desirable spraying liquid against the curculio, 

 in that the insect would be more surely affected by feeding on heavily 

 poisoned leaA^es. 



The lime was prepared by slaking it in a barrel, and stirring it after- 

 ward until the water became quite milky — ■- up to the degree that it 

 would not clog the nozzle of the sprayer. 



Fungicides combined with the arsenites. — The convenience of com- 

 bining fungicides with insecticides, has been for sometime recognized 

 and regarded as a desideratum. Professor Gillette, after having exper- 

 imented with several of the fungicides with a view of ascertaining their 

 efficiency in destroying leaf -feeding insects, reports: that of all the sub- 

 stances which he has used, none can be compared with Bordeaux mix- 

 ture for the prevention of injury to foliage. Although the statement 

 seems hardly credible, he had been unable to produce the least harm 

 upon plum and peach foliage (the more sensitive of the fruits) with Lon- 

 don purple in standard Bordeaux mixture, even when used in the pro- 

 portion of one pound to fifty gallons. In the proportion of one pound 

 to twenty-five gallons, not the least injury was produced to plum foliage. 

 As a severe test, one pound to ten gallons caused no damage to the 

 apple. This almost perfect immunity from harm, might be owing, it 

 was thought, to the precipitation of the soluble arsenic in the purple by 

 the lime and copper hydrate of the Bordeaux mixture. Several other 

 interesting conclusions in relation to various substances and compounds 

 used in spraying, were reached, for which reference is made to the Bul- 

 letin cited. 



