CONFERENCE ON SPRAYING OF FRUIT TREES. 



335 



and animal. In the first are included all the various fungi, from the 

 strawberry mildew to the American gooseberry mildew, and from scab 

 in apples and pears to black stripe in tomatos ; in the second all our 

 animal enemies, from the huge stem-borer, the larva of the leopard moth, 

 to the microscopic bud gall-mite of the black currant. I certainly think 

 the former are harder to attack, as, being so closely allied to their hosts, 

 many of the remedies one tries to apply, while being eminently successful 

 in the killing of the parasite, kill the host too, which fruit growers do 

 not exactly welcome. 



Among the agents for destroying the various fungi, sulphur and its 

 numerous chemical compounds take a high place. 



Strawberry growers have long been familiar with the use of flowers of 

 sulphur for mildew on their plants until now it has become a part of the 

 routine of many farms to dust-spray all the strawberries once or twice, 

 whether the mildew has made its appearance or not. Particularly is 

 this the case where 1 Sir Joseph Paxton ' is much grown, this variety 

 being specially subject to its attacks. 



Within the last year or so we have had also brought to our notice 

 another form of sulphur, or rather a chemical compound of sulphur, 

 which is a most useful fungicide, viz. potassium sulphide, or liver of 

 sulphur, which the Board of Agriculture recommend for gooseberry 

 mildew, and which, if it will not kill the mildew, will certainly act as 

 a preventive of infection, so long as it can be induced to remain on the 

 bush and is not washed off ; but being somewhat of a greasy nature it 

 is very difficult to make it adhere to the twigs of gooseberry bushes. 

 We use half an ounce to a gallon of water. 



Our old friend sulphur turns up again as a constituent of another 

 well-known fungicide as valuable as, if not more so than, the last, viz. 

 copper sulphate — the active principle in that universal spray fluid, 

 " Bordeaux mixture," whose uses extend from the potato to the vine 

 and to all fruit trees. 



It has undoubtedly worked wonders in combating the once dreaded 

 potato disease, and in passing may I say that for the past two years we 

 have used it as a dust spray with very good results, a great economy of 

 labour and a total absence of damage to the haulms (which occurs when 

 large breadths of very strong plants have to be sprayed with a machine in 

 a farm cart). 



We have applied it at the same rate per acre as we should have used in 

 a liquid state, by means of a Vermorel Torpille machine, shut right in, the 

 light powder being even then able to work through the grid fast enough. 

 Bordeaux mixture has also been very successful in the vines in France, 

 and it is at present, so far as I know, the only remedy for scab in 

 apples. 



My own experiments in this direction at present have not been very 

 successful, but that either this or some other remedy must be persevered 

 with is fully apparent to all who see the immense quantity of scabbed 

 apples that have come on to our markets this year. 



The drawback to this spray fluid is its somewhat slow action, and also 

 the fact that you cannot be sure that it will not scorch the foliage and 

 sometimes cause it to fall. The leaf of some varieties is so much more 



