THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 15. 
24-2 
MILDEW, INSECTS, AND SULPHUR. 
Being in company with an intelligent farmer the 
other evening, the partial and total destruction of the 
winter bean crop naturally formed the topic of conver¬ 
sation. I had imagined that the sowing of these beans 
so early had been a modern method with a peculiar kind 
of bean; but I was informed that a similar method was 
adopted many years ago; that the success, at first, was 
great: but that afterwards, in some seasons, they so 
failed that their culture became unpopular. Some of 
our sires, in practice and experience, might, therefore, 
have it in their power to furnish data that would be of 
national importance. I also found that—very contrary 
to the hap-hazurd manner in which it pleases some 
writers to describe farmers as conducting their opera¬ 
tions—the gentlemen referred to could calculate at once 
what a field of beans cost him, and the loss he sustained 
by their destruction. But as to a remedy for the evil 
we found ourselves sunk in the dumps, or traversing 
without a sure chart the regions of Oloudland. Quick¬ 
lime was mentioned as an enemy of the whole fungal 
alliance, as those who water mushroom beds with even 
clear lime water may find to their cost; and sulphur is 
also very efficacious in eradicating the smaller kinds of 
mildew; but, either separately or mixed, there is no 
antecedent for applying them successfully against 
mildew in the fields; and the farmer might have added, 
it will be time enough for us to try such specifics when 
you gardeners can banish such blood-suckers from your 
iate peas in the garden. As to what were some of the 
causes of the evil we were pretty well agreed—such as 
the dryness of the air in April and May, and the cold¬ 
ness of the soil even when there was a bright sun, the 
heat from it being counteracted by radiation, and frost 
at night, and this followed by the cold rains of June, 
without sun heat to give energy to the vital forces, or 
cause the evaporation of the stagnant juices. Granted 
that this is the case, and it will at once be self-evident 
that the higher the state of cultivation the greater in 
such circumstances will be the danger. But even grant 
all this, and we must go a step farther, and find that 
there was something peculiar in the state of these beans 
to invite the disease at that time, or why should spring- 
sown beans, and other crops, placed in similar circum¬ 
stances, have comparatively escaped? Questions these, 
which, as in the potato disease, bring us down from our 
stilted wisdom, and show us how little we really know. 
But why introduce the loss of the beau crop here ? 
For several reasons. First. Puzzling as many such 
questions as the above are, without knowing much in a 
scientific point of view of mildews, I have paid so much 
attention to the circumstances in which they were deve- 
j loped as to convince me that if the following circumstances 
I were not the cause, they were either the antecedents or 
the coincidents of the malady. For instance; excessive 
cold and moisture at the roots, while the branches were 
in a hot, dry atmosphere; a great degree of warmth and 
moisture at the roots, while the atmosphere around the 
branches and leaves was close and muggy; or, if there was 
sunlight, the atmosphere being suddenly cooled, encou¬ 
ragement given by warmth, and moisture, and shade, to 
the extending principle, and not enough of light and air 
to consolidate that growth ; a very dry state of the 
roots, and the plant extending itself by absorbing from 
a foggy atmosphere. These are some of the circum¬ 
stances which we have found associated with mildew, 
whether manifested in a pea, a peach, or a heath, and, 
1 may say, in a vine, though in that department I have 
as yet had no practical experience of its virulence. The 
failure of the bean crop becomes, therefore, a lesson and 
an example to each of our readers who has a plant- 
house, or who grows a few grapes, or any other fruiting 
| plant therein. From such classes (a few grapes being 
as much thought of'in autumn as flowers in spring), 
complaints have reached me in shoals, and too fre¬ 
quently when matters had gone too far for a remedy to 
be effected for that season, while, in the case of plants, 
nothing but consigning to the rubbish-heap could be 
thought about. 
In the open air, preventive measures hitherto have 
been to a great extent beyond our control; not so in 
our plant and fruiting houses. These we can always 
regulate according to circumstances; and prevention 
being ever better than cure, I have found that pro¬ 
portioning the temperature to sunlight, allowing the heat 
to decline in dull, foggy weather, and using sulphur pretty 
freely, as a paint on walls, and hot-water pipes, have 
operated as a security alike against insects (especially the 
red spider) and the dreaded mildew. A number of ama¬ 
teurs who grumbled sadly since they adopted these precau¬ 
tions, and left, when possible, a little air in their houses 
at night, have had reason to be satisfied. In every 
mode in which I have seen sulphur applied against 
mildew, it is equally efficacious against insects, except 
when the sulphur is applied either dry or as a paint, 
with water, to the parts affected; in this mode it tells 
against the mildew, but I never found it beneficial in 
the case of the red spider, as these little fellows will 
ride over and among the little dots of sulphur, and 
seemingly enjoy the matter as a joke, while heat so 
applied as to volatalize these dots into vapour will soon 
send them a flitting, but if the colonies are well esta¬ 
blished several repetitions will be necessary. 
My chief object, however, in adverting to this matter 
now, is to draw particular attention to an interesting 
editorial article in the Gardeners' Chronicle of the 3rd 
of July, in which allusion has been made to what has 
been done in this country, but more particularly by our 
neighbours in France, to arrest the mildew in the vine, 
&c. I do not think the editor would blame us much if 
we transcribed the article, as it contains matter im¬ 
portant to every man who grows a plant. I will merely 
glance at a few points :—Allusion is made to the pow¬ 
dering and syringing of the affected parts. Mention is 
made of Baron Rothschild’s gardener in Paris, M. 
Bergman, moistening his hot-water pipes and then 
sprinkling them with sulphur, and finding these effect¬ 
ual. I have been in the habit of doing this for more than 
a dozen years, and I found it not only a capital remedy 
against the spider, but noted that peaches that used 
to be mildewed never showed a vestige of it afterwards. 
Notice is taken of Mr. Tucker, in 1845, using hydro-sul¬ 
phate of lime in a clear state, dashed against the parts 
with a syringe or brush, the composition consisting of 
one part sulphur, one part lime, and one hundred parts 
of water. Ten years, I should think, before that period, 
something like a similar mode was recommended in the 
Gardeners' Magazine, for keeping the red spider at bay. 
I cannot fasten on the subject at present, but it strikes 
me the writer there used rather more water. The other 
week, such a mode of application was recommended in 
these pages. For doing the red spider, I have found 
such a liquid superior to using water with the sulphur 
mixed up in it. Some years ago I got mildew on some 
winter cucumbers; those dressed with such a liquid 
recovered; those smeared with sulphur got unsightly, 
and so shrivelled that the leaves might as well have 
been removed at once. Flowering plants, such as 
heaths, growing among soft-wooded plants, infested with 
mildew, were also bettered by being* plunged in the 
liquid, or syringed with it; at all events, they were \ 
less unsightly than when smeared or dusted with sul¬ 
phur. Right or wrong, I used to avoid allowing the 
liquid to get into the soil. The using of this hydro¬ 
sulphate of lime is the great point in the article in the 
Chronicle. But then the mode of preparing it is wholly 
new, and deserves the consideration of every one who 
