AMERICAN BLIGHT. 
8 
Prevention and Remedies. — One great method of prevention is 
keeping the trees in such good order that no opportunity is given for 
the Woolly Aphides to effect a lodgment. For this purpose careful 
pruning and careful removal of all injured boughs, so as to leave as 
smooth a surface as possible, is very desirable. Scraping the trunks 
and larger branches in February, and then removing rough excre¬ 
scences which would harbour attack in their crannies, has been 
recommended, the whole surface being well scrubbed afterwards with 
soft-soap wash. 
In 1882, Mr. Malcolm Dunn, writing to me from The Gardens, 
Dalkeith Palace, N.B., mentioned:—“I find soft-soap an excellent 
insecticide, wherever it can be applied with safety to the plant; made 
into a thick lather and applied with a stiff brush to the stems of Apple 
trees infested with American Blight, it is a certain remedy. In the 
winter, when the trees are at rest, it may be applied all over the tree, 
and if the roots are uncovered from the base of the stem onwards as 
far as it is easy to get at them, and the soft-soap is applied to them 
also, the treatment will go far to stamp out the pest. Even a 
thorough soaking of the soil in which the roots run with strong soap¬ 
suds, repeated a few times during winter, is a first-rate means of 
keeping down American Blight. Of course, the soft-soap must not be 
applied (as above) to green leaves or bark ; it is so caustic that it 
invariably burns them, especially if the sun strikes on the soap ; there¬ 
fore it must be used with caution in summer.” 
Probably the mixture known in South Australia as “ Burford’s 
soft-soap and sulphur compound” would be useful. This consists of 
soft-soap, to which one-fourth of its weight of sulphur is added—used 
as a wash for bark at a strength of 1 lb. to 1 gallon of water. 
Any greasy or soapy mixtures, or resin mixed warm with fresh oil, 
or mineral oils used in soft soap, or, in fact, any application that will 
close up crannies and stifle or poison the Aphides, will be of great 
service, so long as care is taken that it does not injure the bark, or 
soak through it to the young tissues beneath. 
Tar, which in former days was recommended, has been proved by 
the experience of late years to be excessively hurtful where it can 
soak into the bark ; where soft-soap wash is to be applied to tender 
surfaces, it should be raised to boiling-point in the process of mixing 
to take away the caustic properties. 
I have myself found that where there was water supply at com¬ 
mand that thoroughly washing down the trees with a good stream sent 
through a spreader at the end of a hose had an excellent effect. The 
force and amount of application could thus be varied as needed, and, 
when the more delicate shoots were cleared, as powerful a stream as 
possible sent directly at the infested spots on the trunk and branches 
b 2 
