CONQUEST OF BROWN-ROT. 
Self-Boiled Lime-Sulphur. 
The most destructive fungus disease 
known to the peach orchardist has 
finally been put under control. J. H. 
Hale, of Georgia and Connecticut, paid 
his respects to the brown-rot disease in 
the following terms: “The brown-rot 
is so great a factor for evil in the rais¬ 
ing of peaches for the market that in a 
few years more it would have accom¬ 
plished the complete failure of my or¬ 
chard plant in the State of Georgia. We 
can master or control every other enemy 
of the peach by up-to-date methods and 
precautions, but until now we have had 
no weapon that would touch the brown- 
rot fungus.” And then he continued to 
say that “the use of the self-boiled lime- 
sulphur spray as a foliage treatment for 
the peach tree, recently discovered by 
Mr. W. M. Scott, of the U. S. Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, alone would swing 
the future status of my fortune from 
failure to success.” 
The importance of this spray to Mr. 
Hale reaches to every other peach 
grower in the country, with somewhat 
less force, except perhaps, to orchardists 
in the arid regions of the West where 
the climatic conditions are unfriendly to 
the career of the destructive fungus. In 
the early peach section of Georgia the 
work of Mr. Scott means the restoration 
of prosperous peach growing, where re¬ 
cently the industry has had to be aban¬ 
doned solely on account of brown-rot. 
Gradually in the past 15 years the peach 
belt has been pushed farther south into 
the humid regions of Georgia for the 
sake of producing earlier fruit. It is 
here that the rot has worked the most 
utter ruin. 
While in general it is true that the 
coastal plains are hardest hit, it is a 
fact that wherever there are stone fruits 
raised in abundance there is brown-rot 
present, waiting only the awakening 
touch of the friendly dampness to bring 
it to life when, in a few days, it will 
devour a large part or all of the profits 
of the orchard. In a recent year D. M. 
Wertz, of Waynesboro, Pa., a large or¬ 
chardist located in the mountain region, 
where peach trees are assumed to be 
comparatively safe from brown-rot, lost 
20 carloads, or about one-third of his 
crop from a sudden outbreak of the 
fungus. 
f he brown-rot answers to the aristo¬ 
cratic Latin name of Sclerotina fructi- 
gena. In habit it is a sort of sleeping 
sickness, since it is able to endure al¬ 
most indefinitely in the mummified fruit 
that, having been infected, has either 
dropped to the ground or hangs with¬ 
ered on the tree. In the moist seasons 
of .Spring and Summer the fungus 
breeds vast numbers of spores that later 
are conveyed by winds to the trees, 
where infection is repeated. In dry 
weather so slight damage is done that 
the disease appears to sleep. Often in 
a badly infected orchard the inroads of 
the rot will be immaterial until, just at 
GUM FROM CURCULIO PUNCTURES. Fig. 21. 
BROWN ROT ON PEACHES. Fig. 22. 
harvest time, a spell of overcast skies 
and high humidity will awaken the 
fungus to activity. A singularly com¬ 
plete case of this kind occurred near 
Dublin, Georgia, a few years ago. The 
grower had reared his orchard with in¬ 
telligent.and devoted care. His orchard 
was one to be proud of, and in this 
year of nemesis the trees bore their first 
bumper crop. Figuring on the masses 
of large handsome fruit that bent the 
branches of the trees the owner ordered 
crates for 40 carloads. All proceeded 
fairly until harvest when, just as the 
pickers began their work, the fair dry 
weather changed to a slow warm drizzle 
that lasted several days. The result was 
a spontaneous combustion of brown-rot. 
Almost instantly with the change of 
weather the spots of decay with their 
beards of white spore-bearing threads 
started out on the fruit. The pickers 
were hurried to gather as much of the 
unspoiled fruit as possible. These se¬ 
lected specimens, a small percentage of 
the whole crop, were crated and shipped. 
In a few days word was received from 
New York that this apparently unblem¬ 
ished product had arrived hopelessly 
ruined by the rot that had developed in 
transit. A crop easily worth $20,000 
was a total failure, and the owner was 
in debt. Healthy peaches become con¬ 
taminated by handling, and the sweating 
that goes on in poorly refrigerated cars 
offers the favorable condition to the de¬ 
velopment of the fungus. The arrival 
of diseased fruit so upsets the market 
that on a day when 50 carloads of clean 
fruit would be readily sold at excellent 
prices, the discovery of 15 or 20 carloads 
marked with the rot is sufficient to create 
a “glut,” and so to lower the price that 
the entire lot will scarcely bring ex¬ 
penses. 
In 1902 W. M. Scott, then State en¬ 
tomologist and plant pathologist of the 
State of Georgia, addressed Dr. Merton 
B. Waite, chief pathologist in charge of 
fruit disease investigations in the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture, asking ad¬ 
vice. Mr. Scott, in the course of his 
travels over the State, continually 
crossed the trails of brown-rot ruin. He 
saw that even the most intelligent and 
industrious grower was almost impotent 
to prevent the progress of the disease, 
and that the annual loss affected a host 
of people, everyone in fact along the 
line, from nurseryman to peach con¬ 
sumer. Now the principal reason why 
until Mr. Scott’s discovery the disease 
had enjoyed immunity was that so far 
as was known there existed no spray 
that could be applied safely to the peach 
tree while in full leaf. All diseases pre¬ 
ventable by dormant spraying, such as 
leaf-curl and California peach blight, 
had been easily overcome, but those re¬ 
quiring Summer treatment had, as a 
rule,, gone scot-free for the lack of a 
suitable fungicide. All that the fruit 
grower could do towards reducing his 
losses by brown-rot was to gather in 
the mummies of the past season and 
burn them. As it was quite impossible 
