By Byron D. Holsted, Pp. 15. Illustrated. Dr. Halsted is the first of our botanists to make a study of spinach diseases. He finds four specific diseases in New Jersey on the forced crop. The mildew (Peronaspora effusa), to the naked eye produces gray, slightly violet patches of a velvety texture upon the under side of the leaves, while from the upper side they have a pale yellow shade, due to the loss of the green color. The anthracnose, a new species (Calletotrichum spinacea), is perhaps the worst disease. It "is a fungus of rapid growth, and therefore quickly spreads from one plant to another. It produces patches or blotches upon the leaves, at first small and inconspicuous. The first indication of its presence is an indescribable moist appearance of the usually circular affected part, followed by the appearance of minute brown pustules, while at the same time a gray color develops, and the diseased area becomes dry. No particular part of the leaf is first attacked, and therefore no two leaves appear alike.

In some cases the largest leaves will be diseased, in other plants only the younger ones; but sooner or later, plants that are affected will become entirely unfit for use." The leaf-blight (Phyllosticta Chenapodii) "forms minute pimples in considerable numbers upon the part of the leaf attacked, usually the lower half." The white smut, a new species, and dedicated by Dr. Halsted to J. B. Ellis (Entyloma Ellisit), gives "the infested leaf a light appearance, as if covered with a fine frost. The attacked leaves were uniformly without the normal green color, and of course, worthless for market." Some black molds also attack the spinach, but they are not often serious pests.

Fruit Cook Book.

Spinach Diseases.

The treatment for these new pests cannot yet be given definitely. The subject is recent, and there are also peculiar difficulties in the way, for "spinach is a crop upon which remedies cannot be so readily applied as many others, because the parts attacked are the ones grown for market.

"The spinach grower must turn his attention to the soil, and seek to have it in the most healthful condition for the growth of clean plants. It is not known how long the spores of the fungi enumerated can retain their vitality. Whether for a long or a short time, it is a reasonable precaution to destroy all refuse leaves that accumulate in the beds and the assorting-house. It is a small matter to keep these leaves, loaded with thousands and millions of spores, from getting mixed with and forming a part of the soil of the hot-bed, or of the soil that may afterwards be used in growing the spinach. It is not simply a matter of neatness, but of preventing or checking the decay. The worst thing to do would be to throw the diseased leaves and refuse of the spinach bed upon the manure heap that afterwards is to furnish the material for the hot-bed. If possible, change the location of the beds. Where the grounds cover several acres, it is possible to go some distance away from the old infested beds and start upon fresh ground. It has been demonstrated with many fungi, as the smut of corn, onions, etc., that the trouble increases with the length of time the same soil is covered with the same crop.

In other words, the soil becomes impregnated with the spores, and the wisest plan to pursue is the abandonment of that crop and grow others not susceptible to the same fungi for a few years, until the spores in the soil die from lack of conditions for growth and propagation. To these precautions it is possible to add the treatment of the soil devoted to spinach with certain chemicals that, while doing no harm to the crop, tends to rid the soil of the disease germs that may be present. It is a matter of experimentation to determine what will prove most affective for this. Equal parts of air-slaked lime and flowers of sulphur thoroughly raked into the bed might be in a large measure preventive".

It is also possible that spraying the plants while young with hyposulphite of sodium, sulphate of potassium or sulphate of copper may be found to be useful and practicable.