Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/665

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AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.
645

withers and falls off. By means of fungicides and the spraying machine, horticulturists are now able to prevent this disease completely. A large number of experiments in controlling it have been remarkably successful, and the difference between sprayed and unsprayed trees has been graphically illustrated by Mr. Galloway at Fig. 7. the engravings being faithful reproductions of photographs from Nature. Recent experiments have proved that the so-called apple scab—a disease which ruins a large percentage of the apple crop every year—may also be prevented by spraying

treated. untreated.
Fig. 7.—Pear Leaf-blight Experiment

with fungicides; and many other of the most destructive plant diseases are already under control, while experiments and investigations are continually progressing, with a view of bringing into subjection those which are yet out of reach.

It was naturally to be expected that the fruit-consuming public would object at first to purchasing fruit which they knew had been sprayed with poison. This is shown in the recent "grape scare" in New York city, and the present attitude of certain English journals toward the importation of American apples. But when the spraying, with either the insecticides or fungicides now