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JOURNAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
experiments, and for courtesies at all times extended to me on my visits 
to them. I am also indebted to Mr. CD. Wise for giving me an oppor- 
tunity of examining buds from the plants under treatment at Toddington. 
To the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society I also tender my 
sincere thanks for giving me the opportunity of placing this report before 
the Fellows of the Society ; and may I add that, if hereafter I should 
have fresh matter to communicate on this important subject, I trust the 
Council will permit me to do so ? 
Of the illustrations, figs. 158 and 159 are from micro-photographs 
kindly supplied by Mr. A. E. Goodman, to whom I am considerably 
indebted for the pains he has taken in preparing them. The remaining 
illustrations are my own productions. 
Discussion. 
The Rev. Professor Henslow, V.M.H., enquired as to what steps had 
been taken to ascertain how the mites migrated from one garden to 
another, or even from bush to bush when not in contact. Until 1897 he 
had never noticed the diseased buds in his garden at Ealing, never having 
had any deficiency of fruit, but in 1897 the bushes were badly infested. 
The garden was quite isolated. 
Mr. Castle, manager of the Duke of Bedford's experimental Fruit 
Farm, said : Mr. Newstead has treated this matter so fully, and it is dealt 
with so exhaustively in the Reports to which he has referred, that there 
is little room for further remarks upon the subject. I should like, how- 
ever, to say a few words upon the methods adopted in the application of 
the various substances. 
For many years I have been impressed with the importance of dis- 
covering some means of preventing or reducing the attacks of the 
Phytoptus if the Black Currant crop is to be of any service to fruit- 
growers in this country. Within my memory and experience I should 
say the number of attacked plants has increased ten times, and a 
proportionate increase would in a few years render the Black Currant 
almost valueless from a commercial point of view. I have tried many 
supposed remedies, with the varied and uncertain results which come from 
partial attempts of this kind ; it was therefore a source of considerable 
satisfaction to me when the experiments at the Woburn Fruit Farm on 
a well-organised basis came under my charge. I had high hopes that 
some really practicable means of destroying the pest would be found, 
and suggested everything that experience had taught me as likely to 
bring about the desired result. Those hopes have not been realised, and 
we have still to find a way of escape from the danger which threatens an 
important crop. 
The best devised experiments are useless if they are not carried out 
with the utmost care. Realising this to the fullest extent, the whole of 
the substances and mixtures employed in the Woburn experiments were 
prepared by myself, and the application was made in every case under 
my own superintendence and with my personal assistance. I can there- 
fore answer for it that all the details given in the Report were carried 
out to the letter. Beyond this, considerable care was exercised in selecting 
