Fruits and How to Use Them. — A Practical Manual 

 for Housekeepers, containitig nearly seven Inindred recipes 

 for wholeso7}ie preparations of foreig>i and domestic fruits. 

 By Mrs. Hester M. Poole. New York: Fowler 6-= Wells. 

 i2nio. Pp. 242. "To women the increased culture of 

 fruit is a peculiar blessing. Unless the housewife be 



hopelessly wedded to the old custom of 

 Fruit providing heavy meats, rich puddings 



Cook Book. and dyspepsic pastry, there is no reason 



why she may not, by the use of fruits, 

 furnish a large and practically endless variety of dishes, 

 one day after another, all through the year." 



It is little less than a wonder to the uninitiated to 

 know that so many tempting dishes can be made from 

 common fruits. Mrs. Poole treats her subject thor- 

 oughly, yet concisely, and we wish that every cook in 

 the land had her book and had gumption enough to use 

 it. The nation would improve in condition. The book 

 not onl treats of the common fruits of the north, but 

 discusse: many sub-tropical fruits as well. Full direc- 

 tions are given for the preparation of jellies, preserves, 

 pickles, ices, etc. It is the best book of its kind. 



Bulletin No. 70, New Jersey Experiment Station. 

 Some Fungous Diseases of the Spinach. By Byron D. Hal- 

 sted. Pp. ij. Illustrated. Dr. Halsted is the first of 

 our botanists to make a study of spinach diseases. He 

 finds four specific diseases in New Jersey on the forced 

 crop. The mildew [Peronospora effusa), to the naked 

 eye produces gray, slightly violet patches of a velvety 

 texture upon the under side of the leaves. 

 Spinach while from the upper side they have a 



Diseases. pale yellow shade, due to the loss of the 

 green color. The anthracnose, a new 

 species [Calletotrichum spinacetr), is perhaps the worst 

 disease. It " is a fungus of rapid growth, and therefore 

 quickly spreads from one plant to another. It produces 

 patches or blotches upon the leaves, at first small and 

 inconspicuous. The first indication of its presence is an 

 indescribable moist appearance of the usually circular 

 affected part, followed by the appearance of minute 

 brown pustules, while at the same time a gray color de- 

 velops, and the diseased area becomes dry. No partic- 

 ular part of the leaf is first attacked, and therefore no 

 two leaves appear alike. In some cases the largest leaves 

 will be diseased, in other plants only the younger ones ; 

 but sooner or later, plants that are affected will become 

 entirely unfit for use." The leaf-blight {Phylloslicta 

 Chenopodii) ' ' forms minute pimples in considerable num- 

 bers upon the part of the leaf attacked, usually the lower 



half." The white smut, a new species, and dedicated 

 by Dr. Halsted to J. B. Ellis {Entyloma Fllisii), gives 

 " the infested leaf a light appearance, as if covered with 

 a fine frost. The attacked leaves were uniformly with- 

 out the normal green color, and of course, worthless for 

 market." Some black molds also attack the spinach, 

 but they are not often serious pests. 



The treatment for these new pests cannot yet be given 

 definitely. The subject is recent, and there are also 

 peculiar difficulties in the way, for "spinach is a crop 

 upon which remedies cannot be so readily applied as 

 many others, because the parts attacked are the ones 

 grown for market. 



"The spinach grower must turn his attention to the 

 soil, and seek to have it in the most healthful condition 

 for the growth of clean plants. It is not known how 

 long the spores of the fungi enumerated can retain their 

 vitality. Whether for a long or a short time, it is a 

 reasonable precaution to destroy all refuse leaves that 

 accumulate in the beds and the assorting-house. It is a 

 small matter to keep these leaves, loaded with thousands 

 and millions of spores, from getting mixed with and 

 forming a part of the soil of the hot-bed, or of the soil 

 that may afterwards be used in growing the spinach. It 

 is not simply a matter of neatness, but of preventing or 

 checking the decay. The worst thing to do would be to 

 throw the diseased leaves and refuse of the spinach bed 

 upou the manure heap that afterwards is to furnish the 

 material for the hot-bed. If possible, change the loca- 

 tion of the beds. Where the grounds cover several 

 acres, it is possible to go some distance away from the 

 old infested beds and start upon fresh ground. It has 

 been demonstrated with many fungi, as the smut of corn, 

 onions, etc., that the trouble increases with the length 

 of time the same soil is covered with the same crop. In 

 other words, the soil becomes impregnated with the 

 spores, and the wisest plan to pursue is the abandon- 

 ment of that crop and grow others not susceptible to the 

 same fungi for a few years, until the spores in the soil 

 die from lack of conditions for growth and propagation. 

 To these precautions it is possible to add the treatment 

 of the soil devoted to spinach with certain chemicals 

 that, while doing no harm to the crop, tends to rid the 

 soil of the disease germs that may be present. It is a 

 matter of experimentation to determine what will prove 

 most affective for this. Equal parts of air-slaked lime 

 and flowers of sulphur thoroughly raked into the bed 

 might be in a large measure preventive." 



It is also possible that spraying the plants while young 



