120 



Manuring of Peaty Land. 



[may, 



origin to the first form of fruit. The spores of the Juniper 

 condition, in like manner, cannot directly infect another Juniper 

 plant, but only a thorn plant. From this it is evident that if 

 either of the host-plants of the fungus is removed, the injury will 

 cease to exist. A careful examination of the Junipers growing 

 within a distance of, say, 500 yards, of the diseased hawthorns, 

 will undoubtedly reveal the presence of swellings on some of the 

 branches. These should be removed and burnt. 



Diseased Straw. — Specimens of imported diseased straw 

 were received from Cardiff, and were found to be infested 

 with the yellowish plasmodium condition of a species of 

 Badhamia, one of the Myxogastres. Owing to the immature 

 condition the exact species could not be determined. 



Violet Root-Rot on Potatoes. — From Longniddry (E. Lothian) 

 specimens of potatoes were received and found to be infested 

 with the disease known as Violet Root- Rot, Rhizoctonia violacea, 

 Tul., an account of which is given in Leaflet No. 171. 



When placed in storage the tubers affected had sweated a 

 little, and the fungus commenced growth afresh. After the 

 surface of a tuber is once broken, various kinds of fungi and 

 bacteria hasten the decay, and the spores are conveyed from 

 one tuber to another by mice, woodlice, centipedes, &c. 



Other specimens received were apple shoots from Longhope 

 (Glos.) ; showing the typical concentric cracks due to the 

 canker fungus Nectria ditissima, Tul. (see Leaflet No. 56) ; and 

 larch saplings from Buckingham attacked by larch canker 

 (Leaflet No. 155.) 



The success which has attended the treatment of peat soils with 

 artificial manures on the Continent has recently been described 

 in this Journal (June, 1907, p. 146), and 

 Manuring of Peaty a leaflet on the subject has since been 

 Land. issued. An example of what might 



be done in this direction in Great Britain 

 is afforded by the experiments carried out by the Agricultural 

 Department of Armstrong College at Glasson and Southerfield 

 in Cumberland. There are very large areas in Cumberland, 

 lying to the south of the Solway, of level marshy and peaty land, 

 most of which has probably at no distant period been covered 

 by water; for example, Bowness Common (3,270 acres), 



