POTATO BLIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81856, 3 October 1906, Page 2

POTATO BLIGHT.

The potato tops exhibited by Mr G. V. Tate ai the Agricultural Society's meeting at Okato, and infect ed with a pest that was then thought by him to bo tho Irish blight enlarged by the favourable conditions under which she growth had commenced, were forwarded lo Mr Tate to the Department of Agriculture. Mr T. W. Kirk, Biologist, has replied that the potatoes wore not attacked by Irish blight, but by an insect known as "green fly." The pest could easily be checked by spraying ihe plants with any of the kerosene remedies recommended to orchardists for the destruction of aphis in fruit trees, etc. The simplest of these kerosene remedies is made by churning together for about 15 minutes two gallons of kerosene and a gallon of skim-milk, sweet or sour. Another cmuteion is made as follows: —Take kerosene, 2 gadons; common soap, -Jib; boiling water, 1 gallon. Melt the soap in the water, which should by preference bo rain-water. ' Pour the solution into the kerosene, and thoroughly churn with a syringe or spray pump (this is done by placing the mixture in a bucket or tub, fixing the pump in and holding the direction in such a way that die liquid is pumped back into the bucket) for ten or fifteen minutes. The emulsion should then, if perfect, form a cream, which thickens on cooling, without any ap pearance of free kerosene.