mo 



THE BOOK OF GARDP:NIXG. 



of narrow trenches some distance from the trunk. This is 

 Hartig's method of coping with the disease, though care must 

 be taken to see that all roots encountered are severed. 



Brown Fruit Rot (Mojiilia fructige?ia). — In America this 

 fungoid disease is very prevalent, and in some seasons the 

 Peach crop is practically- destroyed. Kere the disease is 

 practically restricted to the Apple ; but inasmuch as it 

 will attack Plums, Cherries, and many other fruits, it is not 

 a desirable visitor. The fruit on which the disease is 

 generally noticed has dark discoloured spots upon the sur- 

 face, and after a time it commences to shrivel. Leaves 

 and shoots are also involved. According to Lodeman the 

 disease may be controlled by the use of the simple sulphate 

 of copper solution just before the buds begin to swell ; and 

 later by the Bordeaux ^Mixture. All shrivelled fruits should 

 be removed and burned, otherwise the tree next spring will 

 be infected again. 



Damping Off. — Practically every gardener has had the 

 unpleasant experience with his seedlings suggested by the above 

 heading. The cause of the young plants collapsing in this 

 characteristic fashion is due to a fungus (usually Pythium de 

 ba7'\ anil 111). At first but few of the plants appear to be 

 attacked and fall over, but in a very short time the whole 

 of them in seed-bed or seed-pan are involved, turn pale, rot 

 away, and are covered by a white thread-like mycelium. Cru- 

 ciferous plants, and especially ]\Iustard and Cress, are very 

 prone to the disease, though it is not restricted to any one, 

 or, indeed, to any section of plants. The point of attack is 

 in the stem, just above the soil-line. The fungus is most 

 fatal to seedlings kept too damp, or those from which 

 light and air are excluded. Those who grow numbers of 

 plants from seeds watch them very closely, and as soon as 

 they notice a few of them toppling over they at once remove 

 them, and alter the conditions under which the seedlings are 

 being raised. Care should also be taken not to utilise the 

 same patch the next season for seedling-raising, as oospores are 

 developed, which live through the winter. The fungus also lives 

 as a saprophyte. 



Fingers and Toes, Club Root, and Anbury. — This disease, 

 due to one of the Slime Fungi {^^yxo??lycetes) has already been 

 touched upon in the Chapter " On Vegetable Culture." The 

 species responsible for the mischief is Plasmodiophora brassiccB^ 

 and the excrescences upon the roots of cruciferous plants, generally 

 Candytuft, Wallflowers, Stocks, as well as upon the members 

 of the Cabbage tribe, are too well known. Remedial and 

 preventive measures will be found under "Cabbage'' in 

 the Chapter "On Vegetable Culture.'' 



