52 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ March, 
is favourable to its development, it naturally follows that one of the surest 
preventives is air —plenty of sweet fresh air—and this can be secured to a 
great extent b}?^ proper ventilation, and a judicious use of the heating apparatus 
to set the air in motion. Where this is not available, a drier atmosphere should 
be maintained in the house during cold damp weather, avoiding all unnecessary 
syringing or damping. 
To arrest or destroy the mildew where it has once obtained a footing many 
and varied means have been adopted and recommended. The most effective, 
indeed the only truly effective agent, is sulphur, or certain compounds of which 
sulphur forms the major part. It is chiefly in regard to the method of application 
that the distinction between the various agents is made. Firstly, let it be noted 
that the sulphur must not he ignited in any iray^ that Avould to a certainty not only 
destroy the mildew, but also the vines themselves. We have seen vines so treated 
and so destroyed. As a preventive or safeguard, it is not a bad method to give 
the hot-water pipes—not a flue—a washing or coating over with the flowers of 
sulphur mixed with water, the gentle sulphurous fumes thereby arising being 
destructive to the mildew. Another very, effectual method is to throw sulphur 
on lumps of freshly slaked lime, which will have a like result. The most effectual 
and simplest remedy of all is to dust flowers of sulphur all over the vines. This 
will, in the course of a few days, destroy it, when the sulphur should be imme¬ 
diately washed off by a forcible syringing with clear rain-water, otherwise 
the grapes, being covered with the sulphur, would be spoiled. Many varieties 
of sulphurators for the application of this sulphur have been introduced, but the 
simplest of all is the ordinary penny pepper-box. 
Various liquid compositions, which are applied with the syringe, have also been 
introduced, and are effectual in its destruction, such as the Gishurst compound, 
and others, but as these frequently contain a proportion of oleaginous matter, 
their use for the destruction of mildew on grapes is not to be recommended. 
Quite recently, a .very effectual and excellent liquid application for its destruction 
has been introduced by Mr. Speed, of Chats worth, which is stated to be altogether 
innocuous, and immediate in its effects. It is applied with the syringe, and 
immediately washed off.—A. F. Barron. 
WIRING GARDEN WALLS. 
)OUR recommendation of screws, as described at page 24, is not, I suppose, 
intended as introducing anything new, but merely as a notice of a neat and 
useful contrivance for the purpose. No doubt need be entertained on this 
y matter. They have been in use on walls and otherwise for peaches, 
climbers, vines, &c., under glass before I was a cultivator; I therefore do not 
know how long they may have been acting as wire-tighteners. I have used 
them here, as well as raidisseurs, for that purpose ; but those I have known in 
years gone by, were always liable to become rusted, so that the threads gave-way. , 
[The screws in quest ion are galvanised, and should therefore last for a considerable 
