e best.
This preparation is made by boiling together for one hour or until
they unite, twenty pounds of quick lime, fifteen pounds of flower of
sulphur, and fifty gallons of water. Although the home made mixture is
much cheaper than the commercial form which may be purchased on the
market, many people prefer the latter because of the inconvenience and
trouble of preparing the mixture, although there is nothing difficult
about it.

This contact spray is used chiefly for the San Jose scale and the
blister mite, and in order to control these must be applied strong on
the dormant wood. The strength necessary will vary from one part of
the mixture above mentioned or of the commercial preparation, to from
seven to ten parts of water, according to the density test of the
material, which should be around twenty-eight per cent. Beaume (a
scale for measuring the density of a liquid) for home made, and
thirty-two per cent. for the commercial mixture.

Any good soap is effective in destroying soft bodied insects such as
plant lice. The fish oil soaps, although variable in composition, are
often valuable, especially the one known in the trade as whale oil
soap. This soap dissolved in water by boiling at the rate of two
pounds of soap to one gallon of water, makes a good winter spray for
scale but should be applied before it gets cold as it is then apt to
become gelatinous. For a summer contact spray against lice, one pound
of soap to seven gallons of water is strong enough to be effective. It
is objectionable because of its odor and because it is disagreeable to
make and handle. Lime sulphur is to be preferred as a winter spray,
but the soap spray is often necessary and valuable for summer sucking
insects.

Kerosene emulsion was formerly more commonly used than now against the
scale and plant lice. It is a mixture of one-half pound of soap and
two gallons of kerosene in one gallon of water--preferably in hot
water. For dormant trees one gallon of this mixture should be diluted
with six gallons of water. While this spray is effective it is no more
so than lime-sulphur and is quite difficult and disagreeable to
handle. As a summer spray, however, it is often necessary. Several
preparations of petroleum known as the miscible oils are sometimes
used. Their use is the same as that of lime-sulphur and they are not
as good.

Within the last few years a tobacco concoction known as black leaf
tobacco extract (nicotine sulphate) has com