6 LIME-SULPHUR MIXTURES FOR SUMMER SPRAYING. 
to break up the lumps, and finally enough water to slake the lime 
into a paste. Considerable stirring is necessary to prevent caking 
on the bottom. After the violent boiling which accompanies the 
slaking of the lime is over, the mixture should be diluted ready for 
spraying, or at least enough cold water added to stop the cooking. 
Five to fifteen minutes are required for the process, according to 
whether the lime is quick acting or sluggish. The intense heat seems 
to break up the particles of sulphur into about the physical condition 
of precipitated sulphur, and the violent boiling makes a good mechan- 
ical mixture of tne lime and sulphur. Only a small percentage of 
the sulphur—enough to improve the adhesiveness of the mixture— 
goes into solution, but if the hot mass is allowed to stand as a thick 
paste the sulphur continues to unite with the lime, and at the end of 
thirty or forty minutes enough of the reddish liquid is produced to 
burn peach foliage and even apple 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 mixture with the lime is 
depended upon for the fungicidal action rather than the sulphids in 
solution, the latter being harmful to foliage except in very dilute 
form. 
The mixture should be strained through a sieve of 20 meshes to the 
inch in order to remove the coarse particles of lime, but all the sul- 
phur should be worked through the strainer. 
The amount of water required to make the best mixture depends 
largely upon the lime. Some grades of lime respond quickly and 
take a large quantity of water, while others heat up slowly and are 
easily ‘‘drowned’’ if too much water is added at once. Hot water 
may be used to good advantage in preparing the mixture with slug- 
gish lime, but with quick-acting lime hot water is not necessary and 
is more likely to bring too much of the sulphur into solution. If 
desired, the mixture may be kept for a week or more without deterio- 
ration, but should be thoroughly stirred before using. 
In applying the self-boiled lime-sulphur mixture the spraying out- 
fit should be equipped with a good agitator. The mixture settles to 
the bottom of the tank, and unless kept thoroughly agitated can not 
be evenly applied. For a power sprayer the propeller type of agitator 
is most suitable. The agitator of the ordinary barrel sprayer is not 
usually adequate and when used should be supplemented with fre- 
quent hand agitation. 
Arsenate of lead or Paris green may be used in the self-boiled mix- 
ture for spraying apples, but since Paris green is injurious to the peach 
it is unsafe to use it with the mixture in spraying this fruit during the 
srowing period. In one of our experiments at Marshallville, Ga., 
arsenate of lead was used with the self-boiled wash at the rate of 2 
[Cir. 27] 
