
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 5 
other crops are known to be propagated year after year in the dis- 
eased or infected seed. It is not wisdom to plant such seed and 
then blame the weather for all blights, rusts and mildews. While 
it is true that weather conditions exert a very important influence 
on the rapid development and spread of those diseases it is also 
true that many diseases are introduced into the field in the blem- 
ished, infected seed, and when the weather conditions are unfavor- 
able for the development of the diseases we have “good luck” 
with the crop, otherwise we have varying degrees of “ bad luck.” 
Weather conditions are beyond our control; soil conditions and 
seed conditions are not wholly ‘beyond our control, and there can 
be no doubt that in a very important sense much bad luck is self 
inflicted by neglecting to secure so far as practicable the best 
conditions of soil and seed 
Celery seed, on which the pycnidia can be seen, ought, of course, 
to be rejected, but there is no better way of securing healthy seed 
than by rejecting all diseased plants and gathering seed only from 
healthy plants. We have no assurance that this is done at pres- 
ent, but the benefits of this course are so apparent that it seems 
worth an effort to secure them. | 
Spraying.— Under the present methods of obtaining seed the 
best way of preventing the appearance of the disease is to try 
Spraying with Bordeaux as soon as the little plants begin to 
unfold the first leaves, and spray once or twice a week thereafter 
~ till the plants are transplanted. No experiments in this line have 
yet ‘been reported, but it is certain that if’ the fungus can be suc- 
cessfully fought in the seed bed no other method is likely to prove 
SO inexpensive in material and labor. Experiments made at this 
station have demonstrated that even before the first leaf appears 
* the plantlets may be safely sprayed with Bordeaux mixture, of 
the strength hereafter recommended. 
If the seed-bed treatment can be made as effective as it is Hoped 
that it may be, the question of spraying will be very much sim- 
plified. There is reason to believe that, if the plants leave the seed 
bed in a perfectly healthy condition, and if the ground to which 
they are transplanted is not contaminated with the refuse of 
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