CURRANT. 
Currant Gall Mite. Phytoptus ribis, Westwood. 
Phytoptus (? species). 
Black Currant shoot with infested buds. Gall Mite enormously magnified; 
nat. size invisible to the naked eye. 
Enquiries have again been sent from various quarters as to any 
measures which would be really serviceable in putting an end to the 
bud-gall attack on Black Currants, well called in some places the 
“Bose-bud” attack. This is caused by the microscopic four-legged 
Mite figured magnified above, but it is most exceedingly difficult to 
bring anything to bear beneficially on the matter, as, whilst many of 
the minute Mites are (where it is almost impossible to injure them) 
within the swollen buds of the Currants, there are also many widely 
dispersed about the bushes, or on the ground beneath, and these are 
also liable to be transported by the feathers of birds, or on wind-borne 
leaves in autumn. 
No advance at all, as far as I know, has been made in the past 
season as to practicable methods of getting this attack under, and, 
looking at the nature of the infestation, it seems almost impossible to 
use any measures of prevention or remedy, excepting such as might be 
applied in winter, or when the leaves were fallen in autumn, and 
whilst the buds were still in such minute and embryo state that few of 
the Gall Mites ( Phytopti ) could have set up infestation. 
At this time a coating with lime-wash, such as has been found 
perfectly useful by Mr. M‘Kenzie in the gardens at Glenmuick, N.B., in 
extirpating White Woolly Scale on Currants (see “Lime-wash” in 
Index), might very likely do good, so far as it could be applied. The 
whitewash would lodge in all the nooks and crannies, and kill the 
Gall Mites sheltering within them; and if the dead leaves which were 
* The above figure shows the general form of Plujtopti , or Gall Mites.—E. A. 0. 
