29 



raised and blackened in spots looking like small pimples. When the spores are ready 

 to come out the skin breaks and they escape and reinfect other parts. When the 

 foliage drops early on account of this disease the fruit is liable to be scalded by the 

 sun. The fruit may also wi\;her before ripening properly owing to lack of food or 

 moisture, as the leaves, having fallen, are unable to keep up the necessary supply. 

 The premature falling of the leaves prevents the buds from maturing properly, hence 

 they are not in 'as good condition to bear fruit the next year. 



Spraying with Bordeaux mixture is recommended as an aid in controlling this 

 disease. It would be wise, where currant anthracnose is troublesome, to spray the 

 bushes thoroughly before the leaves appear. A second spraying should be made when 

 the leaves are unfolding, and successive sprayings at intervals of from ten to fourteen 

 days until the fruit is nearly full-grown, or there is danger of it being discoloured 

 by the spray when ripe. Paris green should be added to the mixture when the first 

 brood of currant worms appear. A thorough spraying after the fruit is harvested is 

 desirable. 



Currant Aphis. — When the leaves of currant bushes are nearly full grown, many 

 of them bear blister-like elevations of a reddish colour, beneath which will be found 

 yellowish plant-lice, some winged and some wingless. The blisters are due to the 

 attacks of these insects, and when, as is sometimes the case, they are very abundant, 

 considerable injury is done to the bushes. 



Beraedy. — Spraying forcibly with whale-oil soap solution or kerosene emulsion 

 will destroy large numbers of these plant-lice at each application, but the liquid must 

 be copiously applied and driven well up beneath the foliage by means of an angled 

 nozzle. Two or three applications at short intervals may be necessary. 



Currant Maggot. — Eed, black and white currants in British Columbia and in 

 several places in the prairie provinces, in recent years, have been seriously 

 attacked by the maggots of a small fly. These maggots come to full growth 

 just as the berries are about to ripen, causing them to fall from the bushes, when the 

 insects leave them to burrow into the ground to pupate. Attacked fruit is rendered 

 useless by the presence of maggots inside the berries ; and frequently it is not until the 

 fruit is cooked that the maggots can be detected. Gooseberries are sometimes injured, 

 but far less frequently than red and black currants. 



Remedy. — ^Tie only treatment which has given any results is the laborious one of 

 removing about three inches of the soil from beneath the bushes which are knovra to 

 have been infested, and replacing this with fresh soil. That which was removed must 

 be treated in some way, so tliat the contained puparia may be destroyed. This may 

 be done either by throwing it into a pond or by burying it deeply in the earth. 



Currant Worm or Imported Currant Sawfiy. — By far the best known of all the 

 insects which injure currants and gooseberries is the ' currant worm.' The black 

 spotted, dark, green false caterpillars of this insect may unfortunately be found in 

 almost every plantation of currants or gooseberries every year in almost all parts of 

 Canada. The white eggs are laid in rows along the ribs of the leaf on the lower side, 

 towards the end of May. From these the young larvse hatch and soon make their 

 presence known by the small holes they eat through the leaves. Unless promptly 

 destroyed, they will soon strip the bushes of their leaves, thus weakening them con- 

 siderably so as to prevent them ripening fruit the first year, and also reducing the 



