diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 8150502a7..d756c6908 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -389,7 +389,7 @@ Other changes:
 
 * <antlr>'s debug attribute has been enabled.  Bugzilla Report 19051.
 
-* <mail> has a new attribute encoding. Bugzilla Report 15434.
+* <mail> has a new attribute charset. Bugzilla Report 15434.
 
 * <mail> has new attributes user and password for SMTP auth.
   maillogger can also use this.
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/email/PlainMailer.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/email/PlainMailer.java
index 2be160f55..b302bbe3c 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/email/PlainMailer.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/email/PlainMailer.java
@@ -107,10 +107,14 @@ class PlainMailer extends Mailer {
             }
 
             mailMessage.setHeader("Date", getDate());
-            mailMessage.setHeader("Content-Type", message.getMimeType());
+            if (message.getCharset() != null) {
+                mailMessage.setHeader("Content-Type", message.getMimeType()
+                    + "; charset=\"" + message.getCharset() + "\"");
 
+            } else {
+                mailMessage.setHeader("Content-Type", message.getMimeType());
+            }
             PrintStream out = mailMessage.getPrintStream();
-
             message.print(out);
 
             e = files.elements();
@@ -156,7 +160,8 @@ class PlainMailer extends Mailer {
         }
 
         int length;
-        byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
+        final int maxBuf = 1024;
+        byte[] buf = new byte[maxBuf];
         FileInputStream finstr = new FileInputStream(file);
 
         try {