VoL. LX. No. 2675. 
NEW YORK, MAY 4, 1901. 
tl FKR TEAR 
LIME AND SULPHUR FOR PEAR BLIGHT. 
MB. PHASE GIVES FURTHER INFORMATION. 
Great Interest in the Subject. 
The recent article by Mr. Pease on Pear blight has very 
deeply interested me. His experience, to say the least, is 
a remarkable one. To lose nearly 20 per cent of his trees, 
after such persistent efforts to check it as he used, seems 
almost incredible. I would like to ask Mr. Pease whether 
he disinfected the pruning tools when cutting out biight, 
also whether he cut much below the part affected? He 
says, apart from Bartlett and Louise Bonne, that the 
other varieties were affected about to an equal extent, 
except the Seckel, which was less so. Now, in my ex¬ 
perience, the Angoulgme has been virtually blight-proof— 
far more so than the Seckel. So it would seem that the 
attack of this trouble was a very virulent one with him, 
or else the disease was transmitted from the pruning tools. 
Will Mr. Pease state what proportions he uses of sulphur 
and lime, and the quantity of same to 50 gallons of water? 
I purpose giving this remedy a thorough trial and hope 
that I may have as favorable results as he has had. 
Orange Co., N. Y. j. r. Cornell. 
Mr. Cornell seems to think it almost incredible, 
that we should have met with such a 
loss of trees, with thorough treatment 
for the disease. To make this better 
understood I wish to call attention to 
the condition of the trees. They were 
planted in the Spring of 1893, and were 
attacked by blight in 1897 at the age of 
four years from planting. They had 
been cultivated thoroughly, and cut 
back closely every year up to this time, 
causing a rapid growth of wood, and 
making an ideal condition for the spread 
of the disease. In regard to spreading 
the disease by the tools used in prun¬ 
ing, I think this point has been prac¬ 
tically settled. It has been shown by 
careful experiments that it is very diffi¬ 
cult to spread the disease in this way, 
even by the most careless work. We 
did not deem it necessary to take any 
such precaution, but we were careful to 
cut a safe distance below the blight. For 
further proof I will say that we rarely 
find blight on the part of a limb left 
where blight has been cut. As to the 
susceptibility of the different varieties 
to the disease, I will say that in my pre¬ 
vious article the statement was made in 
a general way, as I have not taken the 
pains to figure out the exact per cent of 
loss of each variety, but judging by ob¬ 
servation I think the Angouffime would 
have shown the smallest per cent of 
loss (except the Seckel), but was far 
from being free from blight. We cer¬ 
tainly did not carry the disease to the 
Angouleme trees by the pruning tools, 
because it was there before the tools 
were used. As to the remedy, I will 
state how we prepared it, and wait for 
further experience to improve upon our method. 
For the wash, use a thick whitewash of lime with 
fiower of sulphur thoroughly stirred in, adding one 
quart of strong brine and one-half pint of linseed oil 
to three gallons of wash. Make it very strong with 
sulphur. For the spray use milk of lime (strained) 
with from five to seven pounds of fiower of sulphur 
to 50 gallons of mixture. It must be well stirred 
while using. As to the proper proportions, we are 
yet in the dark. This must be settled (if at all) by 
future work. I realize that we have opened up a great 
question and a broad field for investigation. The 
more I study the matter the more it seems to me that 
the cutting-off treatment is like locking up the barn 
after the horse is stolen. It is very evident that the 
oisease is in the trees for some time before we have 
any outward evidence of it. I have found trees that 
were apparently all right in the Fall, black from the 
disease the following Spring. It seems to me the 
better way to use a preventive, if possible. 
In my correspondence with scientific men one says 
that “the difficulty in controlling Poar blight by any 
application of sulphur is to get the s ilphur where the 
germ is. The germ is inside the cell. There is no 
way of getting the sulphur to that place.” Another 
says; “I am interested in what you have to say about 
the treatment of Pear blight, but I frankly confess 
that I doubt the effectiveness of the treatment with 
lime and sulphur. I would like to see good experi¬ 
mental evidence supporting it. I doubt it for this 
reason. It has been proven conclusively that this 
disease is caused by bacteria, exceedingly minute or¬ 
ganisms w'hich make their attacks upon the young 
growing tissue, as for example, the tender parts of 
the fiower or tips of the young twigs. The germs get 
in at these tender places, and when once within the 
tissues work downward into the larger branches and 
limbs. Now it appears plain that any spray or wash. 
to be effective in keeping out these germs, must be 
applied at the point where they enter, and a wash ap¬ 
plied to the trunks and limbs would not, of course, 
reach the most essential point. It seems probable 
that any spray, to be effective against this disease, 
must be applied while the flowers are open, because it 
is very evident that bees carry the disease from tree 
to tree as they visit the fiowers.” It is my opinion 
that we may get the sulphur on the trees by a wash 
or spray, or both, strong enough to destroy the bac¬ 
teria before they can gain an entrance. In the inter¬ 
est of the pear growers, I feel that we have a right to 
ask these representatives from the experiment sta¬ 
tions in this State, to give a renHonable reason for their 
doubts of the efficiency of this plan. The question 
has been asked whether we could not use poison with 
tbe spray also, tp kill tbe Codling moth. I can see 
no reason why it could not he done if we were spray¬ 
ing at the proper time. And again, I do not know 
any reason why we might not use the sulphur with 
the Bordeaux Mixture when it seemed advisable to 
do so. I can say that I have seen marked effects of 
the sulphur spray on leaf blight of the pear, so that 
we shall have some benefit from our work, even if 
it should prove an ineffectual remedy for fire blight. 
I have great esteem for the work of the scientist, and 
I trust that in the near future some of them will come 
to our assistance with helpful suggestions along the 
lines indicated. i?ease. 
SPRAYING FOR MELON BLIGHT. 
Several readers have asked what experiment sta¬ 
tion bulletins will give them information about melon 
diseases. After reading the article on page 265 other 
readers ask what is meant by the “one to 12 Bor¬ 
deaux formula.” F. A. Sirrine answers these ques¬ 
tions as follows: 
The New York Experiment Station has published 
no bulletin or pamphlet on melon 
blights. Short articles describing the 
characteristics of the leaf blights of 
melons have been published in the an¬ 
nual reports of New Jersey (New Bruns¬ 
wick), Connecticut (New Haven) and 
Massachusetts (Amherst) stations. In 
addition these diseases have been de¬ 
scribed in several bulletins of the Ohio 
(Columbus) and in one bulletin of the 
Colorado (Fort Collins) stations. The 
principal trouble described as affecting 
melons in New Jersey has been an an- 
thracnose. In Connecticut and Massa¬ 
chusetts it has been the leaf blight call¬ 
ed Alternaria. In Ohio the Downy mil¬ 
dew and Alternaria have caused the 
principal damage, while the Colorado 
writer describes the blight as “Canta¬ 
loupe blight.” Probably it will be best 
to send for bulletins 73 and 105 of the 
Ohio Station for the description of the 
disease and for results of treatment. The 
other articles mentioned describe the 
disease, but give very little with regard 
to treatment for it. 
It would seem that the best method 
for melon growers, and especially those 
who grow muskmelons, to follow would 
be to test the value of spraying on their 
own fields. The work done by Holmes 
Brothers showed that although they 
sprayed for Downy mildew, the leaf 
blight known as Alternaria was checked. 
1 am sure that it will pay growers of 
muskmelons to spray their vines with 
weak solutions of Bordeaux Mixture to 
protect them from the striped beetle, 
and as the so-called Alternaria “leaf- 
blight” is liable to start early in the sea¬ 
son the gain from spraying is doubled. By weak so¬ 
lutions of Bordeaux Mixture we mean the use of only 
two or three pounds of copper sulphate, or blue 
vitriol, to a 50-gallon barrel of water. It is customary 
v/ith writers on spraying to speak of the l-to-8, 1-to¬ 
ll and l-to-12 formulas of Bordeaux Mixture. This 
is a short way of expressing the use of one pound of 
the copper sulphate to eight, 11 or 12 gallons of water. 
Spray pumps are usually mounted in barrels holding 
from 50 to 52 gallons, and generally only about 48 
gallons of liquid are put in a barrel, hence a l-to-8 
formula would mean that six pounds of copper sul¬ 
phate were used in a barrel holding 48 gallons of 
water, and the l-to-12 means that four instead of six 
pounds of copper sulphate are used in the same-sized 
barrel. The l-to-12 formula of Bordeaux Mixture is 
strong enough to use on muskmelon vines at any time, 
HYBRID RUGOSA ROSE NEW CENTURY. Fig. 128. See Page 326. 
