1872. ] 
RUST UPON GRAPES. 
169 
GLADIOLUS JOHN STAN DISH. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
HIS very fine variety of Gladiolus was raised by Mr. Douglas, the talented 
gardener at Loxford Hall, Ilford, and was exhibited in September, 1870, 
when it gained a First-class Certificate. As shown, it was a flower of large 
size and fine form, and one of those in which the two opposite sepaline seg¬ 
ments are uppermost, the two opposite petaline segments below ; the flowers were 
also remarkably stout in substance. The colour was a pale flesh-like hue of 
-.remarkable delicacy, the lower segments being flaked with purple.—T. M. 
EUST UPON GEAPES. 
HIS is an occurrence which frequently perplexes and aillidys tie most 
pains-taking gardener, and one, also, wiici occasionally puzzles him, 
putting his wits to extremities in tracing and finding out the real cause. 
So little marks and injures the fruit in its earliest stages of formation, 
-time rust will be produced by various and often unexpected agents. Bladr grapes 
:are also more easily affected than white; and none are more liable to it than 
bhat good old sort, the Black Hamburgh, Sulphur applied to hot-water pipes for 
the purpose of destroying and keeping down insects, is a common and active 
agent in bringing on rust; so is the admission of air in cold draughts, such as 
are produced by the sudden opening of a door. Water heavily applied by a 
.‘Syringe, and the wafting or twisting of a leaf when air is admitted on a very 
'windy day, are other means by which a disfiguration may be made on the surface 
♦of the berries. 
There is, however, another powerful rust-producer, which I have no doubt 
is a far more active agent than most grape-cultivators are aware of, that is iron- 
rust formed on the piping, troughs, and cisterns of the heating apparatus. In 
our earliest vinery here, I was a good deal troubled with rust for about three 
years, and was very particular each year, and guarded against everything that I 
■understood produced it; still it came, and attacked berries from bottom to top of 
the house. The heating apparatus had three 9-ft. lengths of trough-pipes dis¬ 
tributed along the front; these were kept painted, inside the trough as well as 
■ outside, and, in the earliest stages of starting the vines into growth, were kept 
* constantly filled with water to keep up a moist atmosphere, but were allowed to 
become dry as soon as any of the bunches reached the flowering stage, and were 
not again filled up through the season. The constant supply of water for a time 
-had softened. and a cake of rust which, when the water was dried up, 
Showed itself in g£all patches, had formed beneath the surface. This allowed 
t'ue oxide of iron to be caT^ 0TCr the house wlxen th ® pipes were stron e 1 y 
heated. I had at first some dou' Hs ° f thiS b ® ing tbe e “ tire Cause ’ aS the 
bunches directly over these troughs were njl othera at th ® 
top of the house. In order to prove, however, whether o7 n< * ™ ^ 
3rd series.— v. 
