... we had to fight in the vineyard was the rot, the black rot, an imported disease of the grape that for a few years swept everything. Then spraying with the Bordeaux mixture of lime and copper sulphate checked and finally stopped it altogether—but it was the early sprayings that counted. One year I remember Father neglected this, in his easy, optimistic way, and later, when the rot began, spraying was in vain, and I know that I ... — My Boyhood • John Burroughs
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