136 
July, 1890. 
L 
ORCHM1D GRRDEN 
2. Remove badly infected trees and in 
their places plant known resistant varieties. 
3. In localities where the Rust occurs 
spray all young trees and those which have 
not become too seriously diseased, with the 
Bordeaux mixture, making the first appli- 
cations as soon as the first leaves are fully 
formed. There is no danger of infection 
after the ‘‘Cedar Apples” have dried up, 
nor before they have pushed forth their yel- 
low gelatinous appendages. 
Treatment of Grape Vines ill 1SS9. 
Mr. Jas. C. Brown of Licking Co., 
claims to have stopped the rot “at once” by 
cutting away and destroying every affected 
bunch. 
Mr. H. B. Spencer of Cuyahoga Co., 
although he tried no remedies to prevent 
rot. refers in his report to two interesting 
facts. He says: “I notice that the rot is 
worst where the ground is wet and rich and 
where there is a sappy and strong growth 
of wood.” 
Black-rot appeared on the Massasoit about 
the first of June: it then spread rapidly 
from one variety to another. It rained 
about 40 days during May and June. I 
tried no remedies excepting paper b igs. 
Where these were put on while the grapes 
were very small the latter were free from 
rot. Betwet^ithe Black-rot and mildew my 
vineyard was almost an entire failure. — 
Geo. A. Cage. Wood Co., Texas. 
A correspondent at Trail. Ohio, reports 
that he noticed Black-rot for the first time 
in the latter part of August. [This was 
probably Brown-rot.] He tried none of the 
sulphate of copper remedies but claims to 
have checked the rot completely by cutting 
off the laterals and trimming the vines so 
as to admit to the berries'air and light. He 
finds it best to grow grapes on young wood, 
and intends next year to cut his vines back 
to the stump. 
Black-rot appeared about the middle of 
June, there being only one period of attack. 
During the early part of the season the 
weather was wet and warm ; later, dry and 
hot. Applied Bordeaux mixture once dur- 
ing the latter part of June. I believe the 
application arrested the spread of the fun- 
gus or this might have resulted from the 
coming on of a period of dry and hot weath- 
er. The Brighton and Salem were the worst 
affected — Moor’s Early and Worden not at 
all. Two years ago (1837) I lost nearly all 
my grapes with something like Brown-rot 
— berries excepting those of Worden and 
Moore’s Early, shriveled and dried up. In 
the spring of the year following T spread 
about one pound of powdered sulphate of 
iron around each vine. Whether ow'ing to 
the copperas or not I cannot say, but in the 
fall I had a good crop unaffected by disease. 
This spring I neglected doing anything un- 
til half the berries were affected. I then 
applied the Bordeaux mixture with the re- 
sult above stated. — H. S. Herman, M. D., 
Franklin Co., Pa. 
Tlie Rose Chafer 
( Macrodactyhui subspinosus, Fobr.) 
Probably no insect is more troublesome 
or more difficult to deal with than is the rose 
chafer when numerous. In the restricted 
localities in which it occurs it often appears 
suddenly in immense numbers and feeds 
voraciously upon a great variety of plants, 
doing no little damage to wheat, grasses 
and various garden vegetables. in addition to 
very seriously injuring peaches, plums, ap- 
ples, grapes and cherries. The name Rose 
Beetle or Rose Chafer was given them, 
no doubt, from the fact that they appear 
about the time the roses are in blossom. Dr. 
Harris states that for some time after they 
were first noticed, their ravages appeared 
to be confined almost exclusively to the rose, 
but that within forty years they increased 
prodigiously in number, attacked at random 
various kinds of plants in swarms and be- 
came notorious for their ravages. 
The beetle (see illustration, after Riley) is 
closely allied to our common May-beetle, 
but is much smaller, being only about one- 
third of an inch long and comparatively 
slender. Harris describes the beetle as fol- 
lows: “It tapers before 
and behind, and is entire- 
ly covered with very 
short ashen -yellow down; 
the thorax is long and 
narrow. angularly widen- 
ed in the middle of each 
side, which suggested the 
name of subspinos'ts, or 
somewhat spined. The 
legs are slender and of a 
pale red color and the 
joints of the feet are very Rose Chafer, magnified, 
long." The sudden appearance of this pest in 
swarms and its sudden disappearance at the 
close of its season are the most interesting 
facts in its history, although other beetles 
of the same family have the same habit. 
They appear about the second week in June 
and remain about a month when the males 
become exhausted and die. the females liv- 
ing a few days longer to deposit their eggs. 
Each female deposits about thirty eggs at a 
depth of from one to four inches beneath 
the surface of the ground about the middle 
of July. Dr. Riley states that the favorite 
place of oviposition “is in low, open meadow 
land or in cultivated fields particularly 
where the soil is light. The eggs hatch in 
about twenty days and the young larvas 
feed on such tender roots as are accessible 
to them, attaining their full size during the 
fall. As cold weather approaches, they de- 
scend below the reach of frost, but in the 
spring again approach the surface and form 
an oval earthen cell in which to pupate.” 
Most writers have assumed that nothing 
could be done to successfully combat the 
Rose Chafer in any of its underground 
stages, but Dr. Riley says: “It dees not fol- 
low because of the poor success that has 
generally resulted from attempts to destroy 
similar larvae that they cannot be successful- 
ly destroyed. In thecase of thecommon Eu- 
ropean Cock-chafer and of our own White 
Grub, the methods adopted have consisted 
in plowing and hand picking.” He also 
suggests that we may successfully destroy 
the bulk of the larvae of the Rose Chafer 
wherever they are known to be sufficiently 
abundant to justify such treatment by sat- 
urating the ground with kerosene emulsion. 
So rarely, however, do we know the breed- 
ing place of the beetles that it is evident we 
must concentrate our efforts towards destroy 
ing the beetles just as the? leave the ground 
and when congregated upon our trees and 
vines. Probably the most efficient method is 
to collect the beetles by hand. When they 
infest low-growing shrubs or vines they can 
be easily collected in a large tin pan. con- 
taining hot water or water with a film of 
kerosene. From tall trees they may be 
brought down by a sudden jar to the trunk 
or branches, upon sheets smeared with coal 
oil. This should be done early in the morn- 
ing or towards evening w T hen the beetles are 
most sluggish and less liable to take wing. 
The above method is a tedious and often 
impracticable one and Prof. C. M Weed 
deserves great credit for bringing into prom- 
inence a preventative which promises to be 
fairly successful. This is to spray the trees 
thoroughly with lime-water, from one-half 
to one peck of lime to a barrel of water. 
Plum Curculio and Hie Plum Gouser. 
In Bulletin No. 9 of the Iowa Ex. Station, 
Prof. C. P. Gillette gives the results of some 
interesting experiments in spraying for the 
above named insects. “The poison used 
was London purple and it was applied by 
means of a Nixon Barrel Machine and No. 3 
nozzle. A strong man worked the pump 
and the dense floating spray emanating from 
the nozzle, was directed to all parts of the 
tree until the leaves began to drip. The 
application, it seemed to me, could n t have 
been more perfect. Two applications were 
made. May 4th, twenty-three plum trees 
were treated with London purple in water in 
the proportion of one pound to one hundred 
and twenty gallons. Twenty gallons were 
used in making the application. A flour 
paste in the proportion of half an ounce of 
flour to a gallon of the mixture was added 
before applying the mixture. Most of the 
trees were in full bloom but a few of them 
had already lost most of their flowers. 
On May 11 the application was repeated in 
the same strength. At this time the more 
forward trees were loaded with small plums 
to which the dried calyces were still 
clinging while the more backward trees had 
only just lost their flowers. To: much pois- 
on was used in these applications as the 
leaves were quite badly burned. 
All plums that fell after May 25th were 
gathered at short intervals and closely in- 
spected for curculio or irouger injuries up 
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