1 Ocr., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 313 
4. In selecting varieties of strawberries for cultivation, choice should be 
exercised, other things being equal, of those that are either generally or locally 
less liable to be attacked by the Leaf Blight than are others. 
5. In replanting, a fresh site should, if practicable, be selected, as the soil 
upon which diseased plants have grown is contaminated by the presence of 
fungus spores, derived from their dead and semi-rotten foliage, for a consider- 
able time after their removal. 
6. This new site, as well as the location of any additional area devoted to 
strawberry culture, should not lie in the direction of a prevalent wind that 
passes over a diseased plot. ‘ 
7. Should it not be practicable to select a fresh site, the old plants on 
removal should be burnt on the spot with as little disturbance to them as 
possible, and the soil itself well limed. 
8. Before planting, the soil should be well worked till quite free, and, if 
necessary, subsoil drained. 
9. Land also having a “‘ wet bottom” should not be devoted to strawberry 
cultivation. 
10. In the case of a plot of strawberries in which the disease is generally 
prevalent, it will be usually found advisable to root out and replant should 
the new foliage following a heavy crop of fruit* prove to have already become 
badly attacked; or if two crops of fruit have been already secured. 
When a strawberry bed is more or less affected by Leaf Blight, and 
circumstances generally indicate neither the necessity nor expediency of rooting 
up the plants for the purpose of staying the progress of the disease, there is 
still room for preventive treatment to be adopted. The numbers in which 
the summer spores (or conidia) exist in connection with the parasitic 
fungus occasioning the disease; the facility with which they become detached 
fromtheirsupports; the ease with which they may become transported by ordinary 
atmospheric agencies, and the readiness with which they may sprout and so 
originate fresh Leaf Blight, are features connected with them that point to the 
necessity for the adoption of means for protecting the still healthful foliage 
from their visitation, and from their parasitic growth thereon with attendant 
‘disease, as well as the leaves that are to unfold in the course of subsequent 
plant-development ; and also to secure freedom from attack to beds of plants 
from which the disease is as yet absent. Amongst measures available for this 
purpose, the following have been recommended :— 
1. When little Leaf Blight is noticeable, the spot-bearing leaves should be 
cut out, the plants being systematically gone through for this purpose. But all 
spot-bearing or diseased foliage should, as it is detached, be placed ina bucket, 
and, being taken therein off the field, at once burnt; for, if leaves in this 
condition are permitted to dry on the ground, they will all the more readily 
scatter their spores and so extend infection. 
2. When the crop has been harvested, the whole of the foliage —both that 
which is blighted, and that which is sound—should be cut off and without 
removal destroyed. This procedure was recommended by W. Trelease in 1884. 
The most convenient way for effecting the destruction of old and spotted 
leaves, he wrote, “is by mowing badly rusted beds soon after the fruit is 
gathered, covering the dry tops with a light coating of straw, or harrowing up 
the old mulchings and burning them. . .° . Everyone who has tried burning 
over a strawberry bed has been surprised by the vigorous and healthy appear- 
ance of the new foliage which soon unfolds ”’[(3), p. 85]. 
3. Otherwise, to accomplish a like result, and as recommended by A. W. 
Pearson in 1889, the plants should be sprayed with a mixture of sulphuric 
acid and water, containing one pint of the former in every six gallons of the 
latter. “ When through picking [writes this observer] I sprayed some rows 
* Troelease (W.) quotes a strawberry-grower of very large experience who is emphatic in 
declaring that strawberry plants that have been weakened by heavy crops, or from other causes, 
are especially prone to be seriously attacked by Leaf Blight; several instances being given in 
confirmation of this conclusion [(3), 55-58]. 
WwW 
