112 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ l.ugust 17, 1893 
extent all overcrowded trees. Whether they are pyramids or 
bushes the branches should radiate from the stem at distances of 
not less than 18 inches. This is no waste of space, but on the 
contrary a gain of fruit, where a common-sense system of pruning 
is followed. 
I have no objection to the fruit spurs advancing somewhat 
farther than some cultivators allow, provided these spurs are 
judiciously thinned. No harm is done by leaving stubby fruiting 
shoots from 6 to 9 inches long, if they are shortened after 
the fruit has been gathered. This style of pruning must be 
followed if we are to have good crops of such Apples as Irish 
Peach and Warner’s King, which invariably produce bold flowers 
and fine fruit on those growths ; and leaving them will not crowd 
the trees if the main branches are sufficiently far apart. The chief 
guide in this matter should be the size to which the foliage attains 
when, as now, it is fully developed. Warner’s King, Betty Geeson, 
Small’s Admirable, and Hanwell Souring (a valuable Apple on the 
English Paradise stock) make large leaves, and should have more 
room between their branches than King of the Pippins, Irish 
Peach, and Cox’s Orange Pippin. Exactly the same rule applies 
to Pears, Cherries, and Plume. The branches of Pitmaston Duchess 
Pear need more space than those of Winter Nelis ; Oullins Golden 
Gage needs more room than Coe’s Golden Drop, and the Bigarreau 
race than the Duke Cherries. 
All who grasp Sie importance of having the branches of fruit 
trees a good distance asunder will not allow shoots that extend to 
be cut out afterwards. This is right, for allowing them to grow 
to be cut away perhaps two or three years later is so much 
wasted energy. Fruit trees are often ruined through being allowed 
to form a strong central lead, depriving other branches of support. 
If we are to grow fine fruit the heads of standard or bush trees 
must be kept open, first by the removal of the centre, and then an 
equal distribution of the branches, so that the lower will have an 
equal chance with those that naturally assume a more upright 
position. Small growths and cross branches must be kept out of 
the trees, so that light and air can reach every part to develop 
the buds and colour the fruit. 
If we glance at small fruit bushes we find too many of them in 
a deplorable condition. Gooseberries are allowed to form a thicket 
near the top, and there is not the slightest chance for fruit spurs to 
form beneath them. They have been spoiled by overcrowding 
from youth upwards. By a simple process of allowing main 
branches to extend a foot or so apart, shortening lateral growths 
upon them in summer, and cutting those back to two eyes in 
winter, the branches become clothed with spurs which yield fine 
fruit abundantly. Similar remarks apply to Red and White 
Currants. A dozen main branches are ample for producing 
magnificent bushes, these branches being formed by cutting back 
the shoots of young trees when planted, and again the second 
season. After this they may extend, and by summer and winter 
pruning will become wreathed with fruit. Black Currants are 
also, as a rule, much too crowded. Old fruiting wood should be 
cut out now to admit light and air freely to the young and sturdy 
growths to render them fruitful in character. Raspberries also 
suffer through a thicket of growths. The canes that have fruited 
should be removed forthwith, also the young growths thinned and 
secured against breakage. 
Not only are fruit trees growing in the open crowded with wood, 
but most of those grown against walls have far too many branches 
or shoots. To allow the leaves to hang one over another is wrong, 
as they are then either weakened or spoiled, and so must the 
trees be in no very long time. Healthy fruitful trees and 
bushes cannot be produced by defective leafage, and where over¬ 
crowding is apparent the evil should be rectified at once.— 
Wm. Bakdnby. 
SULPHATE OF COPPER AND PARIS GREEN 
MIXTURES AS FUNGICIDES AND INSECTICIDES. 
Within the recollection of what may be termed experienced 
cultivators, say of half a century’s practice in the agri-horticultural 
field, the maladies incidental to cultivated plants have increased 
correspondingly with the enlarged cultures, and proportionate to 
the spread of commerce—the interchange of seeds, cuttings, and 
plants between all the countries of the world. Blights, moulds, 
and rusts are rifer; beetles, moths, and flies have become more 
numerous, their grubs and caterpillars increasedly vexatious to 
field and garden crops. 
Fifty years ago the Potato disease, caused by the fungus 
(Phytophthora infestans), was unknown as such in this country, 
the French and German vineyards had not been materially 
plagued by Vine mildew (Oi'dium Tuckeri), and brown rot 
(Peronospora viticola) did not greatly devastate European vine¬ 
yards before 1878. Kent was not alarmed by the fungus—the 
Hop mildew (Sphcerotheca Castagnei)—before 1843. The Larch 
fungus (Peziza Willkommi) only became serious on Larches in 
Great Britain in 1875. Apple scab, caused by the fungus 
(Cladosporium or Fusicladium dendriticum) and scab, with 
cracking in Pears, caused by another form of the fungus (C. or 
F. d. pyrinum), was not noticed as remarkably destructive to the 
Apple and Pear crops in this country before 1844. The Onion 
mildew (Peronospora Schleideniana) has only been troublesome to 
market gardeners and seed growers within the last few years. 
This plague is believed to have been introduced to the Canary 
Isles from Bermuda, and found its way to this country by the 
interchange befere alluded to. The “smut” of Wheat (Ustilago 
segetum) and “ bunt ” (Tilletia Caries) have not increased for the 
obvious reason that measures have been taken to prevent their 
recurrence by steeping the seed in sulphate of copper solutions. 
This is particularly worthy of the attention of cultivators. 
With regard to insects, their increased prevalence is notable. 
It is right, however, to mention that Mr. T. A. Knight expressed 
his opinion at the beginning of the century, that insect infestations 
were oftener the cause of the failure of the fruit crops than were 
damage from spring frosts. Nevertheless, the caterpillars of the 
winter moth (Cheimatobia brumata) and other moths have 
defoliated fruit trees in many places within the last ten years 
where they were not particularly destructive before. The Hop 
aphis (Aphis or Phorodon humuli) within the half century has 
grown in blight to Hops so as to reduce the crop in some years 
from an average of 7 cwt. to 2 cwt. per acre, but the Hop growers 
abandoned the predisposed cause—the atmospheiic rigmarole, and 
placed their hopes in science and energy, by which they have or 
may overcome the enemy. The Turnip fly (Haltica or Phyllotreta 
nemorum) “ eats up ” the Turnip crops in some seasons. Miss 
Ormerod calculating the direct loss caused by this pest in 1881 at 
more than half a million of money. Gooseberry and Currant 
sawfly (Nematus ribesi) larvae, aided by the caterpillars of the 
magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata), have maintained their 
infestations with recurrent virulency. Mustard beetles, the “ Black 
Jack ” (Phaedon betulae) had the best of in the Cambridgeshire 
and Lincolnshire Mustard fields in 1884, and often since. Cob 
Nut and Filbert trees have been visited in Kent by the larvae of 
the March moth (Anisopteryx aescularia), this pest delighting in 
green Gooseberries and the tender fruits of Apple, Pear, and Plum 
trees. But the greatest plague of all that I have seen in the half 
century was that of the Oak leaf roller moth (Tortrix viridina) 
larvae in 1888, when they defoliated most of the Oak trees in a 
wood of 100 acres, and left the garden and orchard fruitless. 
Rooks were the only benefactors by the invasion, but the cry in 
1892 was “ still they come ”—the multitudinous hosts of caterpillars 
and in their wake the rooks. 
What have the gardeners and farmers of this country done to 
prevent and repel fungal and insectal invasions ? Ever since I can 
remember the market gardeners of this country collected and 
strewed road dust on their caterpillar-infested Gooseberry and 
Currant bushes. That is the foundation of the copper remedies— 
it is mentioned by Herodotus, b.c. 484, as a practice of the 
Egyptians, but none of our learned scientists took up the subject 
until our brother cultivators across the Channel — the French 
vineyardists—used road dust mixed with verdigris to choke off 
marauders both fungal and insectal. Sulphur proved efficacious 
against mildew — our recipes for bisulphide of calcium, also 
sulphide of potassium remedies are due to the French, yet the 
advent of Peronospora viticola in 1878 caused the French savants 
to direct their attention to the use of sulphate of copper mixed 
with road dust, the effect upon the Vines thus treated being 
more or less satisfactory, and it led to the trial of sulphate of 
copper in solution as a remedy. M. Prillieux, in 1886, reported 
to the Societe Nationale d’Agriculture de France that “the 
numerous experiments made that year demonstrated beyond doubt 
the efficacy of salts of copper in combating the Peronospora of the 
Vine.” M. Prillieux also intimated in 1886 that two or three 
experiments were made on Potatoes attacked by the Potato mildew 
(Phytophthora infestans), the results in consequence of the un¬ 
favourable conditions not being decisive, but likely to prove 
effectual. M. Millordet and M. Gayon also pursued the copper 
remedy with considerable energy, those experts and M. Schloesing 
having shown that the conidia (the spores) of the Vine mildew did 
not germinate on leaves treated with a weak sulphate of copper 
solution, also that the spores of the Peronospora viticola could not 
or did not grow on the under sides of Vine leaves treated on their 
upper surface with sulphate of copper. Experiments that were 
carried out in various parts of France upon M. Prillieux’s recom¬ 
mendation have—especially those of M. Aime Girard in 1888, 1889, 
and 1890 — proved conclusively that sulphate of copper is as 
effectual against the Potato mildew as against the brown rot of 
