Vol. LXIII, No. 2827. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 2, 1904. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
HOW TO MAKE BORDEAUX MIXTURE. 
THE WHOLE STORY CLEARLY TOLD. 
The Great Lime and Copper Combination, 
“Say, Uncle John!” 
“Yes, Billy boy?” 
“Do you spray?” 
“Certainly I do.” 
“What for?” 
“For two things, Billy. First, to prevent fungus 
diseases, and second, to kill insects.” 
“Are fungus diseases catching, Uncle John?” 
“Yes, in a way. Just about the same as weeds are 
contagious. They spread, which amounts to about 
the same thing. I know what is the matter with you, 
Billy. You have one of those 'question fits’ coming 
on, and I may as well have it out with you now as 
later. 
“Fungus, when speaking of one, and fungi when 
speaking of more than 
one, belong to the vege¬ 
table kingdom. They are 
‘dead beats,’ if you will 
allow that expression. 
They do no more toward 
earning their own living 
than does a worthless 
son-in-law who lives off 
the old folks. All self-re¬ 
specting plants make their 
own starch, which forms 
the foundation for their 
growth, and furnishes 
lunches for their off¬ 
spring. Fungi make none, 
but sponge their needs 
from the hard-working 
plants, called host plants, 
although so far as I know 
fungus is never an in¬ 
vited guest. 
“You have seen fungi 
lots of times. The other 
day I saw you on the run, 
squeezing a puff ball and 
making bc'ieve that you 
were a locomotive, and 
that the dust from the 
puff ball was the smoke 
from the smokestack. 
That ripe puff ball was a 
fungus, and the smoke 
was really a collection of 
spores or seeds which 
float through the air. 
Probably there are as 
many different kinds of fungi as there are varieties 
of trees. Some are large and some are small. The 
puff ball is one of the large kinds. In farm crops, we 
have more trouble with the small ones. The little 
fellows make up in number what they lack in size, 
in the same way that mice give more trouble than 
do elephants. 
“This apple which you have shown me, telling me 
that it is ‘wapper-jawed,’ was made so by fungus; we 
call it the Apple-scab fungus. The apple was the host 
and the worthless son-in-law, getting a hold on one 
side, stopped the growth in that immediate vicinity. 
The other side, having no such incumbrances, made 
the growth that nature intended. If you should ex¬ 
amine with a microscope that Apple-scab fungus you 
would find it to be as perfect in form as the puff ball 
you picked up in the pasture. A plant so small that 
it can be seen only through a microscope must of 
necessity have very small seeds. These seeds or spores 
float through the air like the smoke from your puff 
ball, but being so small they cannot be seen. They 
take root in the apple most readily at wet times. When 
the weather is dry they cannot as easily get a hold 
and people say: ‘There is no scab this year.’ All the 
time, however, spores have been in the air ready to 
develop Apple scab, and would have done so had the 
weather have been favorable. 
“Bear this in mind, Billy boy. We must not expect 
to stop the scab after the spores have taken root. 
However, if we do good spraying, at the proper time, 
we can keep the spores from taking a hold. The rem¬ 
edy of which I shall tell you is one of prevention only. 
Many farmers have yet to learn to lock the barn before 
the horse is stolen. 
“Sulphate of copper or bluestone is the best preven¬ 
tive against the fungus spores taking root. After 
having been dissolved in water it should be applied 
by means of a force pump having a peculiarly con¬ 
structed nozzle that throws the liquid in the form of 
fog. If dissolved bluestone were sprayed on to fruit 
trees, it would burn the foliage, and the remedy would 
be worse than the disease. Lime will kill the power 
of the bluestone to burn foliage. How to mix the two 
in exactly the right proportions, and to do it quickly, 
is a very important matter. Lime and bluestone mixed 
in certain prescribed quantities form a solution known 
as Bordeaux Mixture. Knowledge of its value as a 
preventive against fungus growth was gained through 
accident, and was due to the efforts of an old man liv¬ 
ing near Bordeaux, France, who was seeking to pro¬ 
tect his grapes from boys who went ‘cooning.’ 
“During the first few years that your old uncle made 
Bordeaux Mixture, he followed the directions of the 
experiment stations, weighing a certain amount of 
bluestone and a certain amount of lime to each barrel 
of the mixture, dissolving the bluestone and slaking 
the lime each time that he needed a new barrelful. 
Spraying is not, nor has it ever been, an operation re¬ 
quiring a dress suit and a stovepipe hat. One does 
not spray for the fun of the thing. In those early days 
I had much trouble because the spray nozzle would 
clog with lime, and that, together with the bother of 
having to weigh the lime and bluestone, made me feel 
very ‘touchy’ on spray days. If at that time any small 
boys had come around asking questions they would 
have received short answers. To this day you will 
often see directions for making Bordeaux Mixture by 
this weighing method. This is much too bothersome 
a process for a farmer in all the hurry of Spring work. 
"A better way is to have a stock preparation of lime 
and bluestone so that when the spraying outfit comes 
from the field the bluestone may be weighed out with 
a gallon measure, the lime the same, and the barrel 
or tank filled with water, all in the time it would take 
a hungry boy to go to the pantry, put some ‘scallops’ 
into a piece of pie and be ready to start for the or¬ 
chard again. This is how it is done: 
FIRST PREPARE THE LIME.—“Use the lump lime 
that comes from the kiln in barrels. Slake it the same 
as for making whitewash. For this purpose, water- 
slaked lime is much su¬ 
perior to that which has 
been air-slaked. In slak¬ 
ing lime, apply the water 
in small installments. Of 
course a great deal will be 
needed during the pro¬ 
cess, but care must be 
taken lest any one install¬ 
ment be so large as to 
‘drown the miller.’ Lime 
expands a lot in slaking. 
A clean barn floor is a 
good place to do this job. 
When it has been slaked 
to a fine powder put the 
lime into a tight barrel 
from which one head has 
been removed. Next, 
pump enough water into 
the barrel to cover the 
lime for the depth of a 
foot. Throughout the en¬ 
tire spraying season never 
fail to have water stand¬ 
ing on the slaked lime. 
It keeps the lime fropi 
losing strength by exclud¬ 
ing the air as perfectly as 
in the case of canned 
goods. Keep the barrel 
covered as a protection 
against dust and chaff, 
which might clog the 
spray nozzle. 
HOW TO PREPARE 
THE B L U E S T 0 NE.— 
“You know, Billy, when that sweet tooth of yours get.3 
the best of you, you are very likely to put more sugar 
into your coffee than the coffee can dissolve. When 
the coffee has been drained off you will find sugar at 
the bottom of the cup. If you knew just how much 
sugar the coffee would dissolve without leaving any 
at the bottom of the cup, you would know what the 
chemists mean when they speak of a full saturation. 
One gallon of water will hold at full saturation about 
three pounds of bluestone. If more bluestone is add¬ 
ed, it will not dissolve, but will settle to the bottom 
like the sugar in the coffee. I am speaking of condi¬ 
tions where the water standing in the barrel is at the 
temperature it would be during the Spring and Sum¬ 
mer months. From this, Billy, you understand that 
when a gallon of this solution is put into the barrel 
with the pump on it three pounds of bluestone go 
with it. 
“The best way to fill the water with all the blue- 
stone it will hold is to put the bluestone into a loose¬ 
ly-woven bag, such as a phosphate sack, and to hang 
A SUMMER FLOWER BED IN OHIO. Fig. 115. See Page 279. 
