644 Spraying Fruit Trees and Bushes. [feb., 



troublesome one, and it is very difficult to get the sulphur 

 so thoroughly dissolved that it will not clog the nozzles of a 

 spraying machine. The whole must be strained through a 

 sieve of the finest wire gauze as the mixture is being made, 

 and when diluted for passing into the spraying machine, it 

 should be strained again into the machine. It is quite possible 

 that more than the prescribed quantity of water may be found 

 necessary, unless the nozzles of the machine are extra coarse : 

 up to 200 gallons will leave a fair coating on the bushes. Now 

 the lime and sulphur, if the latter be properly dissolved, form 

 calcium sulphide mainly, with other compounds, and as this 

 compound can be obtained of wholesale chemists in liquid 

 form, a trial of it was made this season. Unfortunately, 

 the addition of soft soap brought the sulphur out of the 

 combination, and caused much trouble in spraying. The 

 explanation is that the potash in soft soap is a more powerful 

 alkali than lime. This suggested a trial of potassium sulphide 

 (" liver of sulphur"), which will go well with soft soap, the results 

 of which remain to be seen. For an experiment on a small 

 scale the ingredients were : 3 oz. of potassium sulphide, 3 lb. 

 of soft soap, and one-sixteenth of a pint of linseed oil to 

 3 gallons of water. Possibly half the quantity of soft soap 

 would have sufficed. 



The spraying of gooseberry bushes should be done at least as 

 soon as any buds are found to have been picked off. It is 

 desirable to defer the work as long as it is safe to do so, in order 

 that one spraying of this kind may serve for the season ; but as 

 it cannot be done in a frost, and much mischief might be done 

 by birds in a prolonged period of severe weather, it is hardly 

 safe to defer it later than the last week of December. 



Where birds are troublesome in picking off the buds of plums, 

 pears, cob-nuts, or filberts, the treatment recommended for goose- 

 berries will be equally applicable. 



With respect to insect and fungoid pests, the fruit-grower is 

 perplexed at the preventives and remedies suggested to him. 

 In text-books on the subject he finds from three to six spray- 

 ings proposed for one pest and as many for another ; and, as 

 applications to prevent as well as to cure attacks are recom- 

 mended, and the pests are multitudinous in variety, he is apt 



